


Sincerely Yours, The Crait Breakfast Club

by radioactivesaltghoul



Series: GFFA vs modern au tropes [4]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - The Breakfast Club Fusion, Crack, Crait (Star Wars), I'm taking a lot of liberties here, Multi, do they have weed in star wars?, the level of nonsense in this fic cannot be understated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-07-24 01:01:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20017687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radioactivesaltghoul/pseuds/radioactivesaltghoul
Summary: In the chaos of Snoke’s death and Holdo’s sacrifice, the First Order retreated from Crait, figuring that the Resistance was as good as dead and they had bigger problems to worry about.Poe, Rose, and Finn thought they would be regarded as heroes for the stunt they pulled in trying to shut down the tracker on the Supremacy. Instead, they got thrown in detention.Rey also thought that she would be regarded as a hero for dragging Ben Solo back to the Resistance with her after the lightsaber split. Instead, she got thrown in detention.Kylo knew that he wasn’t getting out of detention when he woke up in binders on the Millennium Falcon with Chewie threatening to rip his arms off.And the genius behind throwing these five people in detention together? Luke Skywalker, who dragged his ass back from Ahch-To to save everyone from his naughty nephew.Can you say “I have a bad feeling about this”?





	1. We all fucked up real bad

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhatSorceressIsThis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatSorceressIsThis/gifts).



> look who's back on their "writing reylo crack" bullshit again
> 
> i've been working on this on and off since WhatSorceressIsThis asked me ["who would be who if there was a crossover of TLJ and TBC?" last year and my answer was "everyone"](https://radioactivesaltghoul.tumblr.com/post/177183883340/mischievous-geek-of-doom-replied-to-your-text).
> 
> this is absolute nonsense set in a vaguely canon-divergent au that vaguely follows the plot of the breakfast club. enjoy.

“I can’t believe we have to be here,” Poe muttered as he leaned back in his chair. “We’re _heroes._ We did hero things.” 

“We did disobey direct orders, though,” Rose said glumly, slumping onto the table in front of her and resting her head on her arms.

“Yeah, but look at where we are,” Poe said, waving his arms around. “We should be out there, helping the rest of the Resistance clean up this old Rebel base. Or helping to send a message to our allies. Or doing something other than sitting here, wasting time.”

Finn just sighed. He, Poe, and Rose were each seated at their own small table in the old storage room that the General had shut them in almost immediately after he and Rose escaped the First Order. “At least we took out the _Supremacy_ on our way out of there.”

“We didn’t do that,” Rose pointed out. “Vice-Admiral Holdo and BB-8 did.”

They were silent. Poe still felt a twinge of guilt when he thought about that. So okay, maybe he did deserve to be there. If he hadn’t, maybe she would still be alive…

No. They’d needed a distraction as they fled. And between her sacrifice and whatever had caused one of the other Star Destroyers to crash into another, the Resistance had been able to escape to Crait, where they could recuperate while they tried to figure out what to do next.

“What do you think caused those other Star Destroyers to crash?” Rose asked, breaking the silence.

Before anyone could answer her, there was a commotion outside the door to the storage room they were sitting in. There was yelling as someone—a couple of someones—approached the room, but nobody could make out the words until the door opened and a couple of people were shoved into the room.

“—I shouldn’t even be here! Why the kriff did you have to bring me back with you? You should have just left me for dead, Rey!”

Finn, Rose, and Poe exchanged glances, eyes as wide as saucers. The voice of the speaker wasn’t anyone that any of them recognized. It didn’t sound like a voice that could belong to an old hermit like Luke Skywalker, but none of them had any idea who else she could have brought back with her.

“I couldn’t just leave you, Ben!” a more familiar voice shouted. “I went there to rescue you, and I kriffing rescued you.”

 _Who the hell is Ben?_ Poe, Rose, and Finn all wondered silently.

“I didn’t ask you to do that!” the unfamiliar voice said. 

“No? Then why did you want me there in the first place?”

There was a pause as the unfamiliar speaker didn’t respond. And then the commotion started up again when the door to the room opened and Luke Skywalker shoved Rey and _Kylo kriffing Ren_ into the room with Rose, Finn, and Poe. True, he wasn’t wearing the mask anymore, but there was no mistaking the identity of the huge man dressed head-to-toe in black.

Yeah. That was the other game-changer that had happened since the Resistance had had to flee D’Qar. Luke Skywalker had somehow been convinced to come out of hiding to help the Resistance. “Both of you, shut the kriff up,” Luke growled. “You’re to stay in here in detention until we figure out what to do with you.” With that, he slammed the door behind him.

“Fuck you!” Kylo screamed at the door behind him. He’d always had a reputation for being completely unhinged. (Both Poe and Finn had witnessed this firsthand. Rose had only heard rumors floating around the Resistance barracks.) Finn was terrified that Kylo was going to turn and destroy them and the room around him, but to his surprise, he just turned to glare at Rey in silence. She glared back, equally silent. To their obvious dismay, the only seats left in the room were side-by-side at another small table, and they both sank into them, eyes on each other the entire time.

Something must have happened between their fight on Starkiller Base and now, because the last thing Finn remembered before he passed out during that fight was Kylo’s post-patricide rage-out against him and Rey. It was a little scary to see Rey glaring at the dark, mysterious, powerful Force-user as if she wasn’t afraid of him at all. _What the hell happened while I was out?_ he wondered, barely aware of the way his jaw was hanging open in shock.

* * *

_Earlier that day…_

The last thing that Rose thought before the vibroblade at her neck sliced through her was _Wait, did I forget to turn off the oven?_

Fortunately, she was saved from the humiliation at having that as her last thought as something came tearing through the _Supremacy_ (no, literally tearing through it) and the world exploded around her. She scrambled around, trying to get her bearings as her brain tried to catch up to the fact that her head was still attached to her body. “Finn?” she called out. “BB-8?” The words were lost in the ruckus of people scrambling to escape before the ship crashed and burned completely. Apparently, there was something about the First Order that made its employees want to turn and run at the first sign of panic. Maybe it was because most of them didn’t actually choose to be there in the first place.

Rose yelped as sudden laser blasts flew past her and she scrambled to hide behind a barrier of some sort, trying to figure out where the hell Finn and BB-8 were. They were alive. They had to be, because she didn’t know how she was going to make it through the next five minutes alone. 

Finn also needed a minute to process what was going on in the chaos around him. He whipped his head around and let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding as he saw that Rose was alive and uninjured.

Huh. He hadn’t realized he’d gotten so attached to her. But the fierceness with which she had spoken to him since the moment they met, the expression on her face as she’d taken the saddle off of that fathier on Canto Bight, and then the ferocity as she bit Hux’s hand when he’d tried to touch her (which, _that_ was a whole other thing to discuss), and… 

Oh, kriff. Finn _liked_ Rose. In a very different way than he liked most people. _Shit._

The loud crash of an explosion happening not even two meters from his head knocked him out of his revelry. _Right,_ he told himself. _Escape now, consider weird, confusing feelings later._

* * *

Meanwhile in the _Supremacy’s_ throne room, Rey blinked her eyes open and pushed herself up. She was pretty sure she’d only been out for a second, given the state of decay in the throne room, but…

“Ben?” she called as she pushed herself up. When no response came, she looked over at where he’d been standing as they fought for the lightsaber. He was passed out on the ground, one piece of the lightsaber a couple of meters from him. And the other piece of the lightsaber… “Aw, shit,” Rey said as she stood to pick it up. _What am I going to do now?_ she wondered, looking around the room. She spotted Kylo’s lightsaber on the floor, then glanced at him before darting over to go pick it up, keeping an eye on him the entire time. That was because she needed to be ready to fight if he woke up, and _not_ because she liked looking at him.

Really, it was.

 _Okay. Now to get the kriff out of here._ Rey figured that going back the way she came in was a bad idea, especially considering the way the ship was moving about. She doubted that it had anything to do with Anakin’s lightsaber exploding, but something had gone wrong aboard the ship. She looked around frantically, trying to find something she could... _Aha!_ A ship—Snoke’s ship, presumably—was waiting and undamaged. She turned to run towards it, but stopped mid-step and turned back to Kylo.

Rey sighed. _I can’t just leave him here,_ she thought. He was going to get eaten alive if anyone found out that he killed Snoke. And anyway, she had gone there to bring Ben Solo back, hadn’t she? And okay, yeah, maybe things hadn’t gone quite as planned. But she still could salvage this situation. If there was one thing she was good at, it was salvaging things.

Not without effort, she clamped the discarded binders over Kylo’s wrists and tried to haul him up. Rey was pretty strong despite her wiry build, but Kylo was kriffing massive _._ There was no way she was going to be able to drag him to the getaway vessel, and the rumbling on the _Supremacy_ was getting worse as it crumbled to pieces. But…

“Just like lifting rocks,” she whispered to herself. Okay, so maybe lifting an actual human being wasn’t just like lifting rocks, but the same principles applied, right?

_Only one way to find out._

* * *

While Rey was busy Force-dragging Kylo out of the _Supremacy,_ Rose, Finn, and BB-8 were scrambling aboard a stolen ship. Finn only had the vaguest idea of how to pilot it, so Rose shoved him out of the way as she and BB-8 took control of the ship. He would have been offended if he hadn’t been so desperate to get as far away from the wreckage as possible. 

As they sped down to the surface of the planet below them, he looked out the viewport and watched as the _Supremacy_ fell apart. It was horrifying to think of all of the people on that ship—people Finn probably knew—but at the same time, this was war. And they needed to bring the First Order down at all costs.

“Are they following us?” Rose shouted from the cockpit.

“No, I think they’re too distracted by the thing that just flew into one of the other Star Destroyers,” Finn said, watching as more of the First Order fleet went down in flames. What was that thing that had just caused it to crash? _Doesn’t matter,_ he thought. _It’s allowing us to get away._ “We fucked up _real_ bad,” Finn said as the enormity of the situation hit him. If he hadn’t already been sitting down, gripping the wall of the escape pod they had stolen, he would have fallen over as the impact of what they’d just witnessed hit him.

Rose took a deep breath in an attempt to calm her nerves. “It’s fine, we’re fine,” she whispered to no one in particular. BB-8 turned and gave her a look. Well, she assumed it was giving her a look. As expressive as the droid was, Rose didn’t always know how to interpret its actions. She wondered, not for the first time, what sort of mods Poe had made that had given it such a strong personality. This was not time for droid-induced distraction, however. “Focus on piloting the ship, Rose,” she told herself.

By some miracle, they made it down to Crait’s surface without any First Order ships following them. By some other miracle, they just barely made it into the hangar where what was left of the Resistance was hiding. “Don’t shoot!” Rose and Finn said in unison as they crawled their way out of the wreckage of the stolen First Order ship, arms held high in surrender. “It’s us!” BB-8 chirped in agreement.

The droid’s commentary seemed to be the thing that sold the Resistance on who was in the escape pod. “Rose!” Poe’s relieved voice called. “Finn! You made it!” BB-8 beeped as if to remind Poe of who else was responsible for making it out of the _Supremacy_ safely.

Rose couldn’t help but look around with dismay as she counted the number of people who were left. “Is this all that’s left?” She couldn’t stop the words before they left her mouth, and she winced when she realized what she’d just said.

“No thanks to you,” someone grumbled. Rose, Finn, and Poe cringed. _Finn was right,_ Rose thought. _We fucked up_ real _bad_.

* * *

Rey thanked all the stars that she had enough piloting experience to figure Snoke’s ship out as she met up with Chewie. He helped her drag Kylo’s still-unconscious body aboard the Falcon, then readied the ship to meet up with the rest of the Resistance fleet. _One more thing,_ she thought as she set some commands on the ship. She tore out of there, praying that she’d given herself enough time before— 

“Chewie, get us the kriff out of here!” Rey shouted as she disengaged Snoke’s ship from the _Falcon_. Not even two seconds later, the ship took off in the direction of the First Order’s fleet, ramming into a Star Destroyer. She couldn’t keep from cheering as she saw the damage it caused, but then she caught herself. Should she be cheering for death and destruction?

 _No time to worry about that now._ She and Chewie had to help the Resistance. More importantly, she had to figure out what to do with Kylo. (Ben? Kylo? Names were confusing.) Chewie roared that he had everything under control in the cockpit, but that he didn’t want Rey letting Ben out of her sight in case he tried to kill his way off of the _Falcon_. 

“Keep piloting the ship,” Rey said. “I’ll keep an eye on him.” _Gladly._

She still couldn’t put her finger on what it was about him that drew her in so much. Was it just a Force thing? No, it couldn’t be. She didn’t have that kind of connection with Luke or Leia. But she’d felt confident enough to literally ship herself to him, so… _What the kriff, none of this makes_ any _sense._

Rey was knocked out of her musings by the sound of a long string of curse words as Kylo woke up. “Rey,” he seethed. “I know you’re nearby. I—” He looked around him. “Are we on the _Millennium Falcon_?”

The last thing Kylo remembered was an explosion as he and Rey fought for his grandfather’s lightsaber. How long had he been out? How the hell had Rey been able to put him in binders and drag him back to his fa— _Han’s_ sad excuse for a ship?

“You’re my guest,” she said. 

“Funny. Where’s my lightsaber?” He was going to kriffing murder someone if she had left it behind.

“Do you mean the one you broke in half, or this one?” she said, holding up the familiar hilt of the lightsaber that was about as stable as Kylo’s mind was. _Thank the stars she took it with her when she kidnapped me,_ he thought.

There was something about the way she was holding it. Something about the way that her hands looked as they shifted their grip on the hilt, as if she was trying to get comfortable with it. They looked so small in comparison to the big, thick weapon in her hands. And there was also something about the way she was looking at it as she turned it over in her hands. And…

_WHAT THE HELL._

He shifted, scrambling to hide what was hands-down the strangest erection he’d ever had in his life, praying that Rey wasn’t paying any attention to what was going on in his head.

Rey’s eyes snapped up as she heard the sound of Kylo trying to escape. She’d been so busy paying attention the way that his lightsaber felt in her hands (it was so _big_ and so _powerful_ and she couldn’t stop marveling at the size of his hands, for some reason) that she’d almost forgotten that he was there. His face was bright red. _He must be_ really _pissed off that I’ve got his lightsaber,_ she thought. _Real mature, Kylo._

“If you try to escape, there’s a Wookiee in the cockpit who will rip your arms out of their sockets,” she said. 

Kylo gulped. _Oh. So_ that’s _who’s piloting this heap of junk_ , he thought. _Wonderful._ It was unclear which was scarier: the idea of the _Falcon_ breaking up mid-flight, or the idea of getting dragged back to his mother _._ There was a terrifying moment where the ship rattled as it entered Crait’s atmosphere, but then it passed, leaving Kylo full of apprehension about the inevitable confrontation that was about to happen. _I did NOT become the master of the Knights of Ren only to get dragged back to my kriffing mother._

Unfortunately, it seemed, the will of the Force had other ideas.


	2. Detention?!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is what happens when you break Leia Organa’s rules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i spent an unnecessary amount of time making this moodboard but heyyyy here you go

Once it became apparent that the First Order wasn’t going to hunt them down to the surface of Crait, the remaining members of the Resistance relaxed a bit.

Well, everyone except Poe, Rose, and Finn.

“What do you mean, detention?” Poe asked as Leia practically dragged him by the ear down one of the disused corridors in the old Rebel base.

“I mean _detention,_ Dameron,” she said. “Clearly, a demotion didn’t do anything to you, so detention it is. Finn and Rose, too. What the hell were you three thinking, disobeying orders like that?”

“We were under attack!” Poe protested. “I was just trying to save the day.”

“It’s not all his fault,” Finn added. “We’re partially to blame as well.” If anything, he was mostly to blame. If he hadn’t tried to sneak off in an escape pod, he wouldn’t have been zapped with an electro-shock prod by Rose. And if Rose hadn’t zapped him, he wouldn’t have explained to her why he was trying to leave in the first place. And if _that_ hadn’t happened, they wouldn’t have realized they knew how to turn of the hyperspace tracking on the _Supremacy_ , leading them to formulate the galaxy’s riskiest escape plan with Poe. 

“I know,” Leia said. “That’s why you two are getting thrown in detention with this laserbrain.”

Rose was keeping unusually silent. _Since when was I on good enough terms with Resistance heroes to get thrown in detention with them?_ Part of her was pissed off about the situation, but mostly she was in awe of the fact that she had done something crazy enough to put her on the same level as Finn and Poe. And speaking of…was she imagining it, or was Finn giving her strange little looks when he thought she wasn’t paying attention? It couldn’t possibly mean what she hoped it meant…

Could it?

_No,_ Rose told herself. _Don’t get your hopes up. There are bigger things to worry about right now._ Her love life—or lack thereof—could wait.

“How long are you going to keep us in detention for, General?” Poe asked.

“Until I say so,” she snapped. “Besides, someone needs to organize the files in here. It may as well be you three.”

Poe and Rose seemed dismayed at this punishment, but Finn felt himself relaxing as he realized that this was the worst of it. He hadn’t been expecting reconditioning _,_ exactly, but he’d definitely been brought up to expect worse punishment when caught disobeying direct orders. And besides, there were certainly worse people to spend time with than the two people he liked—wait. 

Two? 

“Shout if you need anything,” Leia said before slamming the door behind her.

Poe, Rose, and Finn exchanged glances in silence, listening to Leia’s footsteps as she walked away. “So we fucked up real bad,” Rose said as the full severity of the situation dawned on her.

“I can’t believe we have to be here,” Poe grumbled.

* * *

Luke Skywalker had never been so nervous to see his twin sister. Not even during that awkward period after he’d learned that they were siblings. ( _We don’t talk about that time,_ he reminded himself.)

He had fucked up real bad with her son.

He hadn’t wanted to leave Ahch-To—he’d been content to just die there, to be honest—but he knew that Rey was about to do something really kriffing stupid. _You’d think that having that level of Force-sensitivity would prevent you from making bad life choices,_ he thought, _except that I know from personal experience that it doesn’t._

So he’d fished (ha) his old X-wing out of the sea and rigged it well enough to carry him to another part of the galaxy where his intuition told him that Leia was hiding. He’d never been to the particular Rebel base that she and the rest of her crew had holed up at, but it didn’t look all that different from the other Rebel bases he’d lived at in his youth. Older and dingier, yes. But there was a sad familiarity he’d felt as he made his way through the corridors after throwing his naughty nephew and would-be protegé in detention after intercepting them as the _Millennium Falcon_ landed just outside of the old Rebel base on Crait.

Leia was waiting for him as he walked back out of the corridor that the detention block was on. (Well, the closest thing they had to a detention block, anyway. Luke thought it looked like a library of some sort, but he wasn’t in a mood to hang around and check it out.) “So,” he said, trying to adopt a light tone. “How have you been?”

His sister wasn’t having any of it, though. She looked a little ill from her recent near-death experience, but Leia Organa was, and always had been, a kriffing force of nature. “Don’t give me that bantha shit,” she snapped. “What are you up to, Luke? Why didn’t you come back with Rey and Chewie?”

Luke fought to keep a neutral expression. _What indeed._ “How well do you know this Rey of yours?” he asked. 

Leia frowned. What had happened on Ahch-To that made Luke sound so suspicious of the strange Force-sensitive girl that had stumbled into the heart of a galactic war? Maybe Leia never did much training with the Force, but she knew enough to know that Rey was special, even by Skywalker standards. “No need to sound so suspicious,” she said. “She actually has the same backstory that you do.”

“What, raised by her stepfamily because her father was a powerful Sith lord ruling the galaxy?”

Leia didn’t appreciate her brother’s sarcasm. “She grew up an orphan on a desert planet completely unaware of her Force-sensitivity, stumbled upon a droid, and got dragged into matters bigger than she ever imagined.”

“Who are her parents?” As far as Luke knew, there was no way she could be a Skywalker. He, Leia, and Ben were the only ones still alive. Was she secretly a Kenobi? Had Old Ben accidentally knocked someone up in his youth? Luke had always known that Ben Kenobi had had a full life before he’d become a hermit on Tatooine, but the idea of the old Jedi master having an affair made him squirm. It was like seeing your sister wearing a metal bikini while in chains: wrong on every level imaginable, even though someone somewhere had thought it was a good idea.

“No idea,” Leia said, pulling Luke out of the daze he’d started to fall into. Whatever he was thinking about, it wasn’t good, judging from the way he was starting to look a little green. “And I don’t think she knows, either. I got the sense from the way she idolized...” Han was still a difficult subject for Leia to talk about. He probably always would be, despite what their relationship had been towards the end.

The benefit to being one of the most powerful Force-sensitives in the galaxy was knowing what his twin was trying to say without her actually having to say it. “Right,” Luke said. “Listen, I think there’s something weird going on between her and Ben. I saw them holding hands in a hut on Ahch-To, and then she ditched me to go chase after him.”

Leia had figured that something like that had happened when Rey and Chewie landed on Crait with _him_ in binders, but what Luke was implying... _No, no way_. “How the kriff did he end up on Ahch-To?”

“Beats the hell outta me. The Force really likes fucking around with Skywalkers.”

“No shit.”

* * *

Rose had never felt a more awkward silence than the one that fell on the room after Luke Skywalker slammed the door, leaving her, Finn, Poe, Rey, and Kylo Ren locked in a room together. 

“So who talks first?” Poe said, finally breaking the silence. “Do I talk first, or you talk first?” Judging by the way Kylo switched his glare from Rey to Poe, the words meant something to him. Rose wondered if this was the first time they’d met. It would be just like Poe to provoke someone like Kylo Ren, she thought. His audacity would have been more admirable if it didn’t continue to get him and the people around him further into trouble.

“That line wasn’t funny the first time, and it’s not funny now,” Kylo growled at Poe. Out of all of the Resistance fighters to be stuck in a room with, it _had_ to be the self-proclaimed best pilot in the Resistance, the traitor, and Rey. Kylo’s luck had never been good, but this was a new low. Not to mention, he and Dameron had met once or twice when they were kids, and now that he no longer had a mask, there was a chance that Dameron would put the pieces together about Kylo’s identity. 

“Aw, he remembers me,” Poe said. Not that he’d ever admit it to anyone, but facing Kylo Ren again was kriffing terrifying, even if the Darth Vader wannabe seemed surprisingly docile. _Docile? Kylo Ren?_ Poe nearly snorted at his own internal monologue. But there was something weird about the way that Ren wasn’t trying to kill his way out of the room. It took him a moment to realize that neither Kylo nor Rey were armed with lightsabers, and they were both wearing a set of binders. Poe couldn’t help but wonder if they were magical Force-suppressing binders of some sort. _There are weirder things in the galaxy, right?_ If anyone had something like that lying around, it would be Luke Skywalker.

Of course, then there was the question of why Skywalker needed something like that...but that wasn’t really any of Poe’s business.

_Dameron seems surprised that I remember him,_ Kylo thought. Maybe the pilot assumed that Kylo tortured too many people to keep track. To be fair, it wasn’t an unfair assumption to make, even if it was incorrect. Kylo remembered everyone he tortured. And the pilot was more terrified than he was letting on; Kylo didn’t even need the Force to tell him that. He looked around at the other two people in the room and narrowed in on the one he recognized. “FN-2187,” he said evenly, locking eyes with the former stormtrooper.

“Finn,” Rey, Poe, Finn, and Rose said in unison. “I stopped being FN-2187 the second I flew off of that star destroyer,” Finn added, somehow managing to keep his voice steady.

Kylo was impressed despite himself. Not only had FN-2—sorry, _Finn_ —managed to escape the First Order, but he’d managed to get himself tied up with Dameron and the rest of the Resistance. _Fucking figures._ Dameron had always possessed a sickening amount of charisma, if he recalled correctly. And then there was Rey, and… 

Okay, so he may have been furious with Rey for dragging him back to the Resistance with her, but he could see why Finn had stuck around, if she was involved. Hell, there had been a moment where Kylo himself was prepared to follow her to the end of the galaxy, even though the moment had long since been ruined by her rejection.

Finn stared Kylo down, refusing to be the first one to break eye contact. The bacta that the Resistance had used to treat the wound on his back wasn’t the best, and he was still going to bear that scar for the rest of his life. Finn noted that there was a scar on Kylo’s face that hadn’t been there before, and he resolved to ask Rey about it the second he got a chance to talk to her in private and ask her what in the actual kriff she was doing with Kylo Ren. The more he watched the two of them, the more curious he got.

And speaking of the scavenger… “Finn!” Rey said, finally realizing that there were people in the room other than her and Kylo. “You’re awake! And you’re okay!”

Both Finn and Kylo turned to look at Rey. Kylo gave her another glare, but Finn grinned. “You’re not going to believe what’s happened since I woke up and you were gone,” he said. 

“I have so much to tell you, too,” Rey gushed. Kylo stiffened. Was she going to tell FN— _Finn_ —about their Force Bond? Not that he particularly wanted to acknowledge it at the moment, but it was _theirs._ Finn had no business knowing about it. Neither did anyone else, for that matter, although Skywalker had to have picked up that there was something strange about him and Rey. _That_ was a conversation Kylo wanted to avoid at all costs.

Of course, he was still planning on killing his uncle the first chance he got, which meant that that conversation was never going to happen anyway. It was an oddly brightening thought, all things considered.

Rey wasn’t in any rush to reveal the full nature of her relationship with Kylo—there was no good way to explain the bond she had with him or any of her motivations where he was concerned—but how could she not want to fill Finn in on what had happened after the fight on Starkiller? Sure, they’d only really known each other for a few hours, but there was a certain bond that came from escaping one’s homeworld in a stolen ship that turned out to be the famed _Millennium Falcon._ And anyway, judging from the way he, Poe, and the other woman in the room with them were exchanging looks, something had developed there as well. The fact that there was someone she cared enough about to want to talk about all the things they’d done since they were apart was new to Rey, and it filled her with an unfamiliar affection. 

_Well, it’s no longer silent, but it’s still awkward,_ Rose thought. How was she supposed to insert herself into any of this conversation? Not that it was a particularly great conversation, mind you. Kylo Ren was glaring daggers at everyone, Poe was putting on such an exaggerated act of bravado that it was becoming douchey, and Finn and Rey were just barely restraining themselves from having a reunion hug or whatever it was that they wanted from each other.

Seeing Rey again was weird, Finn realized. He’d been so set on finding her again so that they could run away from the war together, and yet...well, obviously, no one in the room was running anywhere in the immediate future, but everything had changed for him since they’d last spoken. More than anything, though, he was glad that she was safe and unharmed (aside from that nasty-looking cut on her arm...but he figured she’d tell him all about it later). “Your hair looks nice like that,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was so long.” 

_That_ provoked a strong reaction from everyone in the room. Rey ran her fingers through it self-consciously and murmured “Oh, thanks.” Poe gave Rey an assessing look, like he was trying to figure out if he agreed with Finn or not. Rose looked slightly hurt (Finn felt a pang of regret about that— _no, I don’t like Rey like that, not like I like you. I think._ ) Curiously, Kylo turned bright red and dropped his gaze down to the floor. Finn didn’t know how to interpret that, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

Kylo couldn’t figure out why Finn’s compliment bothered him so much. What did he care about Finn and Rey? He knew they were friends. Or something. After all, she’d attacked Kylo in defense of Finn during the battle on Starkiller. And it wasn’t like he didn’t agree with Finn. Rey’s hair _did_ look nice when it was half pulled back like that.

Rose felt a pang of something that felt uncomfortably like jealousy echo through her chest as she heard Finn’s compliment. Not that Rose had met Rey before today, but she’d heard just as many rumors about Rey as she had about Finn and Poe, and that was even before listening to Finn talk about her for hours and hours while they were off on the field trip that had landed them in this detention.. The girl from Jakku who found Han Solo’s ship, faced down Kylo Ren, and parted ways with the Resistance to go off in search of Luke Skywalker? Rose felt more starstruck meeting Rey than she had when she’d met Finn and Poe. _How do I even begin to measure up to these people?_ she wondered, not for the first time. 

Rey didn’t like how quiet the room had become, so she latched onto the first thing she spotted. “Who are you?” she asked the short woman sitting between Finn and Poe. Even without knowing her, Rey could tell that she was special. Clearly, Finn and Poe thought so too, judging by the fond looks they shot her way.

“Me?” Rose said. Well, more like squeaked. It was embarrassing. “I’m Rose,” she said, grateful that her voice sounded more normal. “Rose Tico. Mechanic.”

“And Resistance hero,” Finn added with a grin. “We wouldn’t have made it off the _Supremacy_ without her.” 

“Wait, you were on the _Supremacy_?” Rey asked. _Don’t look at Kylo don’t look at Kylo don’t look at Kylo—dammit,_ she thought as she and Kylo locked eyes. Even cut off from the Force courtesy of the binders that Luke had pulled out from somewhere in the _Falcon_ ’s storage rooms, she could tell that he was a flurry of emotion. It was his eyes. They were too damn expressive. Luckily, he seemed to be in just as much agreement as she was that discussions of what had gone down in the throne room were off-limits.

“They almost died on the _Supremacy_ ,” Poe said. “It’s a kriffing miracle that they made it out alive and down to the base in one piece.”

_You can say that again,_ thought Rose. Being a Resistance hero was cool and all, but that was an experience she never, ever wanted to repeat. 

“She bit General Hux’s hand,” Finn said, unable to keep from laughing. 

“She _what?_ ” Poe and Kylo said in unison.

“Oh my stars,” Rose mumbled as she covered her face with her hands. “I can’t believe I actually did that.”

“I would have paid a million credits to see that,” Kylo said. “Did he like it? I bet he liked it. I’ve always figured he was into some really kinky shit.”

“Rumor had it that he usually spent his so-called shore leave secretly tied up in Phasma’s quarters,” Finn said. 

“ _I_ started that rumor,” Kylo boasted.

Finn struggled to repress a shudder. Having Kylo Ren sitting in the same room as him was an uncomfortable reminder of where he came from. It wasn’t that Finn was ashamed of being a former stormtrooper, but seeing the nightmare known as Kylo Ren sitting maskless trapped in Force-suppressing binders was a sight he never, ever thought he would see. It humanized him, and Kylo Ren was not a being that Finn had ever wanted to see humanized. 

“I would have thought that you’d have better things to do than stir up trouble among the stormtroopers,” Rey said dryly. “Like kidnapping, for example.”

“That was one time,” Kylo said. “And it was only you.” Something in his tone caused Poe and Rose to exchange glances. Rose couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it sounded like there was a subtext going on that everyone else seemed to be missing. _Nah, it’s probably some weird Force-sensitive thing,_ she figured.

Why was Kylo Ren so familiar? Poe couldn’t figure it out. It was difficult to reconcile the masked monster who had tortured him and the young man sulking in binders. His voice was completely different without the voice modulator, but that couldn’t be it. His face _._ Something about his face looked familiar. Almost like—”Motherfucking shitballs,” he gasped. “Ben Solo. You’re Ben Solo.” 

_Do Poe and Be—Kylo know each other?_ Rey wondered. _How?!_

Kylo cringed. He’d been hoping that Dameron was too stupid to connect the dots. “Ben Solo is dead,” he said sharply. He saw Rey roll her eyes, but he ignored her. 

Rose gasped. “Not—General Organa is your _mother_?” There was definitely a long and _very_ ugly story there. But before she or anyone else in the room could respond to that revelation, the door swung open and Luke Skywalker— _holy shit, that’s Kylo Ren’s kriffing_ uncle—stepped into the room.


	3. Everyone is about as subtle as a Gungan on Tatooine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is confused, someone is amused, someone is awkward, someone is angry, and someone is thirsty.

“Didn’t Leia tell you to start going through the old files in here?” Luke asked as he looked around the room. Rose, Finn, and Poe understood the message: _Kriff off and let the Force-sensitives talk._ Poe hated feeling like a child being told to go play in the corner, but he was too busy reeling from the realization that his boss’s kriffing _son_ was right-hand man and apprentice to the Supreme Leader of the First Order. (The realization that Ben Solo had tortured him never even crossed his mind; that particular revelation was too much for him to handle at the moment.) He was only too happy to get out of the way as Luke, Rey, and Kylo—Ben—discussed whatever it was that they had to discuss. Rose and Finn were eager to follow him, and the three of them started quietly going through the piles of equipment in the room, trying to pretend that they didn’t want to know what the Force-sensitives were discussing. 

_This can’t be good,_ Rey thought as Luke stared down at her and Kylo. It was awkward enough that he’d been the one to meet her as Chewie landed the _Falcon_ on Crait after she’d run out of Ahch-To the way she had. _If I go to him, Ben Solo will turn._ Well, she’d been half-right, she supposed. He _had_ turned against Snoke. He just hadn’t turned back towards the Resistance.

Somehow, she didn’t think that Luke would see it like that.

_Calm down, it’s just Luke,_ Kylo told himself, trying to will his body into relaxing. It felt impossible when he was in binders, cut off from the Force and unarmed. His body was tense, muscles coiled and itching for a fight while his head felt fuzzy, like he couldn’t quite focus on the things going on around him. The sensation of a knee nudging his made him snap back to the present, and he looked over to see Rey giving him a look that was almost a smile. Maybe it was just his desperation, but he swore she was just doing it to let him know that she was there with him.

Maybe she couldn’t read him in the Force, but Rey was amazed to realize how well she could read Kylo’s body language. (It was unnerving, actually, considering how recently they’d met.) Even though she knew that Luke hadn’t actually wanted to kill him, she still felt his memory of waking up to see Luke standing over him poised to strike like it was her own. And despite everything, she couldn’t resist trying to signal to him in some way that she was on his side in this regard. Kylo had done inexcusable things, but she hadn’t changed her mind about Luke’s fault in turning Ben Solo into Kylo Ren.

Luke held back a grimace. Yeah, there was _definitely_ something going on between the girl and Ben. _Kriff, this is awkward._ Part of the reason he hadn’t wanted to open a new Jedi academy in the first place was that he didn’t like dealing with teenagers. And despite how old they actually were, Rey and Ben were acting like teenagers who didn’t know how to handle a crush. _Gross._ “So I heard something interesting happened on the _Supremacy,_ ” he said. When neither of them responded, he tried again. “Enjoying those binders?” 

“Why do I have to wear a set?” Rey asked. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” Okay, so that was a lie, but she wanted to know if Luke was going to call her out on it or not. Like hell she was going to tell Kylo that she’d fought Luke for his honor. (It was _so_ embarrassing that Luke had been right when he’d said “This is not going to go the way you think” back on Ahch-To.) She didn’t need anyone to realize how strong of a connection she had to someone who was supposed to be her enemy.

Luke silenced Rey with a look. He wasn’t going to bring it up if she wasn’t. Besides, he didn’t want to interfere in his nephew’s love life. Nor was he going to mention this to Leia; there were too many other conversations they needed to have about Ben first. 

“Ben,” Luke said. “How could you—”

“Do it?” Kylo seethed.

_Do what?_ Poe wondered. Luke could have been referring to everything his nephew had ever done since becoming Kylo Ren, but Poe had a feeling that this was about something in particular.

Kylo wasn’t done. “Are you really asking me that after what _you_ did?”

Luke felt his face heat up, and he struggled to keep a neutral expression. _We should probably hash this out in private,_ he thought, but he didn’t trust his nephew to not attempt to kill him if he took him out of this room right now. “That’s not what I was going to ask,” he said. They were eventually going to have to have that conversation. Just not right now. “How could you appear on Ahch-To? Force projection is a dangerous skill, even for the most talented and powerful of Jedi.”

“I’m not a Jedi.”

Luke sighed. “No, you’re not,” he murmured. “The question remains. How did you do it?” Maybe Rey had the answer, but she was keeping her mouth shut, staring off into the corner like she wasn’t a part of this discussion. Luke doubted she would be any more forthcoming than Kylo.

The truth was, Kylo still didn’t know how it worked. He and Rey still hadn’t been able to see each others’ surroundings, and yet he and Luke had been able to see each other just for a moment before the connection had been broken. He couldn’t even say if it was because Luke was also Force-sensitive, or if non-Force-sensitives would have been able to see him as well. If everyone had been in a better mood, it would have made for some good science experiments. Not to mention the limits of how he and Rey were able to make physical contact from across the galaxy, which was a whole other topic that deserved exploration and research. Lots and lots of research. “None of your fucking business,” he growled.

Rey desperately wanted to not be involved in this conversation (which was made more awkward by the fact that she was the only other person in the room who knew the truth about what had gone down the night Kylo had fled Luke’s new Jedi temple), but seeing as it sort of concerned her as well, she knew she was about to be dragged into it. “We don’t know how it works,” she said, forcing herself to look at Luke. _Maybe if you had taught me more about the Force and the Jedi, I would have a better idea,_ she added silently.

Kylo’s eyes flicked over to look at Rey. _Traitor,_ he thought. _Don’t tell him anything about_ our _thing._ He knew she couldn’t hear him, not while they were cut off from the Force, but he couldn’t stop himself from trying to project the thought anyway.

_Oh, for kriff’s sake,_ Luke thought. They were not as subtle as they thought they were. The other three people in the room (he’d already forgotten their names) were slowly going through some of the items and files in the room, clearly trying to eavesdrop on the conversation. “Fine,” he said, figuring that a strategic retreat was the best move. Besides, he had to tell Leia what had happened the night that Ben had destroyed the Jedi temple. He owed her that explanation, and he’d rather she hear it from him than from her son. “But you’re stuck in those binders until I say so.”

Finn couldn’t figure out why Rey was trapped in Force-suppressing cuffs as well. Surely Luke was aware that she and Kylo weren’t exactly friends. Rey was on _their_ side. The side of justice and equality and all things good. She’d found the map and fought her way out of a First Order base, and then she’d rushed off to become a Jedi. It just didn’t make any sense, from what he could tell. Finn added it to the list of things he and Rey needed to discuss as soon as they had a moment in private.

_We should definitely not be present for this conversation,_ Rose thought. She didn’t let that stop her from eavesdropping, however. To her, Poe’s, and Finn’s disappointment, Luke left the room without another word, the _We’re not done here_ implied. 

Kylo let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding when the door closed behind Luke. Slowly, he felt himself relax, and the fuzzy feeling that he had in the presence of his would-be murderer faded. Rey hadn’t made any other move to comfort him (assuming that was what the nudge had been; she could have just been trying to get comfortable in her seat), and he found himself oddly disappointed about that. Which was weird, and was probably something worth investigating later on when he wasn’t trying to figure out the best way out of this situation, because he was:

a) locked in a room on an old Rebel base,  
b) cut off from the Force, and  
c) surrounded by people who probably wanted to kill him.

As much as he hated to admit it, he was probably safer in this room than he was outside of it at the moment. The other four people in the room seemed in no rush to escape, probably because they actually wanted to stay with the Resistance. (And also probably because when Leia Organa told you to stay in detention, you kriffing _stayed in detention_.)

They all continued to sit in silence for the next couple of hours. No one knew what to say to each other. Kylo was torn between wanting to ask Rey what Luke’s comments to her had been about and never wanting to speak to her again due to the way she’d dragged him back to his mother and her band of murderers, traitors, and thieves. Something had happened between the hand-holding incident and her arrival on the _Supremacy_ , and he was pretty sure that it had something to do with him.

Rey couldn’t wait to get a moment alone with Finn so that they could fill each other in on what had happened after the battle on Starkiller Base. Sure, there were parts of it that Finn definitely didn’t need to know about (such as a certain fireside conversation that was still making her stomach flutter when she thought about it), but he was the first friend she’d ever made. She couldn’t wait to talk to him again.

(And maybe tease him a little for the looks he kept shooting Rose and Poe when he thought no one was looking.) 

She wanted to get to know Rose, too. She couldn’t help but feel intrigued by the fact that she was looking at someone who had faced down the high commander of the First Order and _bit his kriffing hand_. Rey had done some ballsy things when faced with an adversary, but she’d never done anything like that. Oh, and maybe the mechanic would know how to get the Force-suppressing handcuffs off. That would be nice. Well, maybe it would be a little unfair to let her out of the cuffs and keep Kylo in his, but Rey doubted that anyone else on the base would be comfortable with that. Who was to say he wouldn’t go after Luke?

_Although...I could take him in a fight_ , Rey thought. _With no lightsabers, it would be hand-to-hand combat. I’ve been training for this sort of thing my entire life. I bet he has, too. Maybe he’d try to punch me in the face and give me a mark of my own. But then I’d have an opening to crouch down and knock him over with my shoulder. Get him in the stomach, where his center of gravity is. And once he’s on the ground, I could kneel over him and pin him down with my body, my hands holding his wrists in place next to his head, my knees pinning him in place on either side of his hips. And then I could lean over him, and…_

Someone coughed, knocking Rey out of her daydream. She hadn’t realized she’d been staring at Kylo while she fantasized about all the points where their bodies could make contact if they were to fight. She felt her face heat up as she realized exactly what direction her thoughts had been moving in. _These are thoughts I should not have about someone who is supposed to be my enemy,_ she thought.

Rey was wearing the strangest expression on her face as she was very obviously trying (and failing) to not look at Kylo, Rose thought. If she hadn’t known any better, she’d have thought that the Jedi was staring at him like she wanted to reach out and touch him. But no, they were enemies. The Jedi and the Jedi Killer. Clearly, she just didn’t know Rey at all. Rose hoped that could change someday; Rey seemed like a good person to know, even though Rose was still a little jealous of the way Finn had fawned over her in her absence. 

The sight of Kylo Ren (or Ben Solo, or whoever he was) glaring at the binders holding his wrists in place while Rey stared at him with a strange, faraway look in her eyes was bizarre enough to make Poe laugh. He didn’t want to bring any attention to himself, and bursting into a fit of giggles in a silent room would achieve the opposite of that. He coughed in an attempt to hide it when he failed to completely suppress it. The noise jolted both Force-sensitives out of their respective musings, Rey’s face turning a curious shade of red, and Kylo’s eyes snapping up to glare at the locked door.

Time was moving so slowly, with the five of them locked in a room and unwilling to talk to each other. Kylo had nothing to say to anyone in the room ( _especially_ Rey). Rey was still trying to figure out where the hell that daydream about Kylo had come from and why it didn’t feel like the first time her thoughts had run along those lines. Finn didn’t know why he was having the same weird nervous feelings when looking at Poe as he did when he was looking at Rose. Rose still didn't understand how she'd ended up in the position she was in. And Poe was still trying to hold in his hysterical giggles, because holy shit _Ben Solo and Kylo Ren were the same person_ and Rey kept giving him weird looks that Poe was a little afraid to interpret.

But eventually, the boredom and the post-battle exhaustion set in, and each of them found themselves struggling to keep their eyes open and eventually failing, all of them falling asleep hunched over the tables. (Kylo was going to be sore later. He was too big for the furniture in the room.) It wasn't until General Organa walked into the room and snapped "Wake up!" at the crew that any of them realized they'd drifted off.


	4. Lunch. Or dinner. Maybe breakfast?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Decades-old ration packs are still good to eat, right?

Kylo's eyes flew open immediately at the sound of Leia’s voice, as did Rey's. Neither of them were particularly sound sleepers, a habit built up after a lifetime of needing to be constantly on their guard. Finn, Rose, and Poe were a little slower to stir, but nobody was going to hold back when the general was standing at the front of the room. "Does anyone need to use the fresher?"

All five hands shot up into the air.

An excruciatingly awkward ten minutes later, they were being marched back into the room, a young blonde woman handing them ration packs as they shuffled back in. "It's lunch," she explained. "Or dinner. Maybe breakfast? We're all a little jetlagged today." 

Rey couldn't believe her eyes. Sure, the ration back was probably about forty years old, but who cared when it was better than nothing? It couldn't possibly be worse than anything she'd eaten on Jakku, and she was never going to turn down food.

Kylo, similarly, wasn't in the mood to turn down food. He ate only out of necessity, and he could barely remember when the last time he ate was. So much had happened in the last few days, and in between the last Force bond conversation with Rey and her arrival on the Supremacy, he'd been too nervous to eat anything. Not that he was going to admit exactly how nervous he’d been; it carried implications that he wasn't ready to consider. 

_These rations have to be decades old,_ Rose thought as she struggled to keep the disgust from her face. Poe seemed to be having a similar reaction, and they exchanged glances as if to say _What did we do to deserve this? (Wait, don't answer that.)_ She was surprised that Finn wasn't complaining. What kind of food did they feed stormtroopers that he was comfortable eating old rations?

Finn didn’t have much of an opinion on the ration packs either way. Sure, it was a little gross to eat something so old, but he'd spent so much of his life living in space that he barely knew what fresh food looked like, let alone tasted like. This wasn't a particularly appetizing meal, but in the chaos of his and Rose's trip to Canto Bight, they hadn't had much of a chance to eat. Food was food, in the end.

The room continued to be awkwardly silent, the only noise the sound of ration packs being opened. _Or...wait, that's not how ration packs sound,_ Poe realized. There was the sound of something being mixed together excitedly, and then the clatter of utensils as someone behind him attacked the ration pack like it was about to run away. Finn, Rose, and Kylo were having a similar reaction to the sounds of food being practically inhaled coming from the direction of Rey's seat. 

This was way better than anything Rey had eaten on Jakku. Or maybe it wasn't actually better, she just _thought_ it was better because it provided variety that she'd never had access to on Jakku. She tore into the meal like she always did with the portions she received on Jakku, determined not to waste a single morsel of it. She'd never given any thought to the way she consumed food before—she'd always eaten her meals alone, without any other witnesses around—but she realized halfway through licking the rest of the food off of the plate that the other four people in the room were staring at her like she was tap-dancing naked on Hoth.

Kylo felt a strange twinge of something that almost resembled guilt underneath the more familiar emotion of anger. What was wrong with Rey's parents that they'd sold her off for drinking money, forcing her to grow up in an environment where that was her reaction to a decades-old ration pack? _Wait, why am I so angry about Rey's upbringing?_ he asked himself. _I mean, I'm angry about everything, but why this?_ Maybe it was just a leftover emotion from the fight they'd had post-other-fight on the Supremacy. They'd both had adrenaline coursing through their veins. Not ideal conditions for having a heavy conversation about her past. (Even though he was right and she was wrong and what was so wrong with him that she didn’t want to rule the galaxy by his side?)

_The only way out is through,_ Rey thought as she continued to lick the plate clean like she wasn't completely self-conscious of the way people were staring at her. She was particularly embarrassed by the look Kylo was giving her. He knew exactly how she'd grown up. He'd been inside her head and seen something that she'd locked away from herself. How _dare_ he judge her for that? 

_I have to say something,_ Rose thought frantically. _This is too weird and awkward._ "So, Finn," she said. "What was the food like in the First Order?"

Why the kriff did Rose care about the food in the First Order? _Well, I suppose she can't just ask Kylo Ren,_ Finn thought. "It was fine," he said as he shoveled the ancient MRE into his mouth. "Nothing special." Although...maybe her motivation in asking about stormtrooper food was to get the attention off of that racket that Rey was making. Finn knew she was sort of, well, _feral_ , but he hadn't realized that he'd never seen her eat until that moment. He figured that the least he could do, as her friend, was to try to take some of the scrutiny off of her. _Quick. Think of a new question._ "So, Poe," he said, "how old is BB-8, anyway?"

_That was an even dumber question than mine,_ Rose thought, cringing at how transparent their attempt to take the attention off of Rey was.

Conversation remained stilted and awkward as Rose, Finn, and Poe attempted to pass the pressure of keeping the conversation going off to each other, each attempt even more transparent than the last. Kylo and Rey didn't mind, though; Kylo had no desire to insert himself into their little club, and Rey was too busy trying to comprehend why her eating habits were so bizarre to her friends. Eventually, though, they ran out of food to pick at and bad conversation starters to ask, and they once again lapsed into silence.

Kylo straightened up as something occurred to him. In all of their inane questions, Rose and Poe had never asked Finn why he'd left the First Order. Sure, they'd asked questions about his life there, but they'd never asked him why or how he'd done it. He’d wondered what could possibly motivate a stormtrooper to run away and join up with the Resistance ever since Jakku, and now he finally had the opportunity to find out. Without warning, Kylo dragged his chair over to sit right in front of Finn. 

Finn froze as he was suddenly locked in a staring contest with Kylo Ren. Something had been bothering him for a while, after that night on Jakku: either Kylo didn't care that Finn refused to murder innocents, or he did care and he'd just waited until later to do something about it (and by that point Finn and Poe were already on their way out of there). "What?" Finn said, finally snapping. He wanted Kylo out of his face, and with the Force-suppressing cuffs on, how much damage could he possibly do? _Don't answer that,_ Finn warned himself.

Kylo knew that he needed to phrase this carefully. He had a bad habit of letting his mouth act before his brain could catch up. (Exhibit A: everything he’d ever said to Rey.) This question was important and he was already on thin ice with these people. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake now. "How did you do it?" he asked, the question coming out calmer than he actually felt. Now that he was actually having this conversation with Finn, he felt oddly jittery.

_No, not jittery,_ Kylo realized. _Anxious. I’m anxious for the answer._ It was a nice change from the other anxiety he’d been wrestling with.

Finn frowned. "Do what?"

"Leave." 

Rey had been trying to convince herself that she didn't care about whatever Kylo had to say, but she felt her heart stutter at his question. _That's...that's a good thing that he's asking, right?_ She hoped that he wasn't asking so that he could take notes to improve the stormtrooper brainwashing curriculum.

_That_ was what Kylo wanted to know? Finn didn't know if it was better or worse that he didn't have an answer. He paused before answering, considering his words carefully. He would have been lying if he said that he wasn't afraid of what Kylo would do to him if he gave the "wrong" answer. But at the same time, this wasn't exactly the sort of thing you could comfortably lie about. And anyway, he was pretty sure the Knight of Ren (or former Knight of Ren? Finn wasn’t sure exactly how that worked within the First Order hierarchy) could read his mind.

"It was wrong," Finn finally said, looking Kylo straight in the eyes. "What we did in that village on Jakku. It was wrong. And I didn't want to be a part of it anymore."

"But how?" One didn't simply leave the First Order. Even though Kylo had been receiving a crash course in "everything your mentor told you was a lie" recently, he still couldn't fathom just walking away like Finn had. And Kylo hadn't even been a part of the Order from infancy, unlike the stormtroopers. Knowing what life was like outside of the Order should have made it easier for him to walk away, not harder. 

Rose, Poe, and Rey were barely breathing. They each independently came to the conclusion that one wrong move would be enough to spook the two First Order defectors out of their tense but vital conversation, and they couldn’t deny that they were curious about the answer, too. Poe knew what Finn had told him the day they’d escaped, but Finn had never discussed the details, and they hadn’t had a moment to really talk about it since.

"I just did. I don't know! Stop asking me questions I don't have the answer to." The outburst startled Finn more than it startled anyone else in the room. "Why is this so important to you, anyway?"

Kylo didn't have an answer for that. "It just is," he muttered, looking down. Now that some time had passed, he realized that he wasn't as angry with Rey for dragging him out of there. Well, he _was_ angry with her; just not about that. Nothing good would have come out of him sticking around after that fight. Either someone high up the First Order food chain would have killed him for killing Snoke, or he would have had to take up the mantle himself. At the time, that option had sounded like a great idea, but it would have been meaningless without Rey by his side. He still didn’t want to join up with the Resistance—not after everything his family had put him through—but the First Order wasn’t the right place for him, either.

There were a million reasons why Kylo could be asking Finn that question, and Rey was dying to know which one it was. She hoped that he still wasn't angry that she'd dragged him out of there and taken his lightsaber. That had been a matter of public safety, and Rey was nothing if not safety-conscious. Usually.

(There was a selfish part of her that wanted to be the reason he left because she’d never been enough of a reason for someone to stay with her, but that kind of reasoning would only set them up for an unhealthy dynamic.)

_Enough of this awkward silence banthashit._ Kylo hadn't been to Crait since he was a kid, but he did know where Han tended to leave some of the, uh, herbal refreshment that he sometimes enjoyed. _Besides, you've seen one old Rebel base, you've seen them all, right?_ "Get up," he said, rising to his feet.

The other four people in the room exchanged glances. _Is this safe?_ they all tried to ask each other. Rey was the first one to rise to her feet. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"We're going on a field trip."

Rey frowned. "We're locked in this room, and you and I are in Force-suppressing cuffs." 

"The mechanic can take care of that," he said, nodding at Rose.

"You're making a pretty big assumption there," Rose said. "Rey, I'll help. You? What's in it for me?"

He grinned. "You forget who you're talking to. I know where Han Solo kept all the weed. And if we have to be stuck here, we may as well enjoy ourselves a little bit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my life is a bit chaotic at the moment so bear with me if it ends up being a week or so before i can get back online to update/respond to comments of any sort!


	5. Space weed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sure, they have marijuana in the GFFA. Why not?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Rey doesn't know how to eat food in a manner considered socially acceptable by the other four, Finn and Kylo have a mini heart-to-heart, Rose agrees to break Rey and Kylo out of their Force-suppressing binders so that he can lead them all on a field trip to find Han's 40-year-old space weed stash, and Poe is just along for the ride.
> 
> If there’s an in-universe term for marijuana, I don’t care. It’s funnier to just say “space weed.”

It didn't take Rose and Rey long to rig up a way to pick the lock on the Force-suppressing cuffs. Rey hadn't even realized how strong of a sense her sixth Force sense was until she was freed from the cuffs and thousands of sensations flew back at her. She inhaled sharply and shook her head, trying to dispel the rush.

"It'll pass," Kylo murmured from where he was sitting next to her. Rose was sitting across the table from them, picking a couple of last wires out of the cuffs as she studiously ignored him. She hadn't fully come around to the idea of letting Kylo out of the cuffs as well, but it was good to see some of the color flow back into Rey's cheeks. Getting cut off from the Force must hurt, she realized. She didn't have the same personal beef with Kylo that Finn and Poe had, which made her a little more impartial and a little less quick to make assumptions about his motives. And despite what everyone else seemed to think, the maybe-former-Sith-apprentice was looking at Rey with genuine concern. It was oddly heartwarming, seeing a big bad villain reduced to a guy in cuffs.

Rey needed something to focus on to calm her breathing and combat the increased heart rate that she'd gotten when she'd been let out of the cuffs. She focused on the slow inhale and exhale from the person sitting next to her, needed to have something to count. It wasn't until she'd come back into her body that she realized she'd been matching her breaths to Kylo's. He was giving her a look that she could only describe as sympathetic, but it was possible that he was just trying to convince everyone to let him out, too.

It was weird. She could still feel something missing. Something hadn't come back yet. It took her a minute, but... _Kriff. I think I know what's missing._ "Let him out, too," she said to Rose, who was busy adjusting something in the cuffs. 

Finn and Poe exchanged glances. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" Poe asked.

"He's not going to start killing his way out of here," Rey said. 

_No, he'll wait until after our guard is all down,_ Finn thought.

"And if he tries, I can handle him," she added. She felt her cheeks heat up as all sorts of mental images of ways she could _handle_ Kylo flew at her. _I need to tamp down on this, stat. He doesn't need to know about this._

Was that a faint flush Kylo detected on Rey's cheeks? _She must still be mad at me,_ he thought. The thought filled him with more misery than rage—an uncomfortable combination of emotions, especially considering he still thought he was in the right.

The air was suddenly charged with something that made Poe and Rose uncomfortable. There was more to Rey and Kylo than either of them was letting on. _Are all Force-sensitives this intense?_ Rose wondered. She'd never met any before now. _Living near the old Jedi temple on Coruscant in the Old Republic must have been terrifying._

Rose looked at Finn, who was still locked in a stare with Poe. _I hope I'm not interrupting,_ she groused to herself. "So?" she said aloud. "What's the verdict? Rey says yes. I trust her. Finn? Poe?"

Finn didn't like it, but he knew that Rey could take Kylo in a fight. And anyway, something about the way he'd asked Finn how he'd left the First Order was making him feel like maybe there was more to Kylo Ren than just the killing machine he'd been a part of in the First Order.

Maybe. 

"Let him out," Finn said, finally breaking the stare he'd been holding with Poe.

Poe let out a breath. Apparently, he was the only one with reservations about this, possibly because he was the only one whom Kylo had tortured—

No, wait. He'd kidnapped Rey and interrogated her once, hadn't he? _She must be into some really kinky shit,_ he thought, considering the looks she kept giving him. Rey's and Kylo's heated glances were concerning, but...well, Poe really wanted to break into some of Han Solo's weed stash, even if it was probably as old as the ration packs they'd just eaten. 

The room was silent aside from the sounds of Rose's tools picking away at the bindings. She _accidentally_ let one of the wires slip, and bit her lip to keep from grinning when Kylo cursed at the tiny shock of electricity from the slipped wire struck him. A moment later, he was free. Both Rey and Kylo left out deep sighs. The effect was eerie. Rose suddenly wondered if they'd made a big mistake. 

Kylo gripped his hands in fists to keep from rubbing his wrists. He didn't want to let anyone know how sore they were from the binders. The little shock from the mechanic hadn't been painful so much as surprising. She was too good at her job for it to have been a mistake. Kylo probably should have been angry about that, but he was just impressed that she had the balls to do it. He felt the same _whoosh_ of sensations as he regained his sense of the Force, but he hid it better than Rey did. He'd had a lot more practice, after all. (Being cut off from the Force was a good training tool; it was a bad idea to get too comfortable fighting in just one style.) 

_Ah, there it is. The missing piece._ Rey refused to think too hard about the implications of the fact that she found comfort in knowing that she and Kylo were still bonded in the Force. And even though she only have the vaguest idea of what she was doing, she still threw up mental shields. He didn't need to know what she was thinking as she watched his hands clench, now that they were free of the binders.

_Enough of this._ "You're free," she said shortly. "Can we go now?" 

"Where are we even going?" Rose asked. "You can't possibly know what's on this base. It hasn't been used in decades. Look at the condition of this room," she said, waving a hand at the room around them.

"Old Rebel bases follow roughly the same layout," Kylo said calmly. "If you're going to be a part of an underground anti-governmental group, you need to have a good system so that when you need to run, you can pick back up on a new base as smoothly as possible." 

That lined up with the way the Resistance ran things, Poe knew. They'd inherited a few things from the Rebellion when galactic politics had started getting precarious again. "Have you been here before?"

Kylo shrugged. "Once," he said. He didn't elaborate. He didn't want to go into it, not with this group. Rey could probably read it on his face—and if she couldn't, then she could definitely read it in the Force. He had mental shields up, sure, but one could never be too careful, and he had a strange way of letting his judgement fly out the window where she was concerned.

"How do we know we can trust him?" Poe asked. It was rhetorical at this point; they'd already let him out of the cuffs. Still, he felt like it had to be asked.

"What trouble could he possibly get us into?" Rose asked. "We're already here. We're not going to be thrown out of the Resistance. Not at these numbers. The general might demote us further, but they need us." 

"They might not be too happy about us letting him free," Poe asked, nodding at Kylo.

Kylo was most certainly not _free_ , but he doubted that mattered right now. "He has nowhere else to go," Rey said, looking at him. She wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, but having it pointed out in so many words still made him want to flinch. 

There was a pause as Rose, Finn, and Poe thought about it. "Okay, then," Poe said, breaking the silence. "Lead the way, Kylo."

* * *

"Are you sure we can trust him?" Finn whispered to Rey as the five of them crept through the empty corridors of the old Rebel base.

It was a valid question. So why did it raise Rey's hackles? "We can trust him," she whispered. 

"Is it a weird Force thing you two have?" 

_A weird Force thing. You have_ no _idea, Finn._ "Logic," she said. "What reason does he have to get us in trouble with the General? He's not stupid enough to try to kill his way out of here. Not after the way we left the Supremacy."

"Speaking of," Finn said, "Why were you there in the first place?"

Rey opened her mouth to say _It's a long story,_ but she was shushed by Rose. "What?" she hissed. "No one's around to hear us, anyway." She couldn't sense anyone else, anyway.

...Surely, she'd know if Luke or General Organa were approaching, thanks to the Force?

"I don't sense them, either," Kylo murmured. Okay, so he probably didn't need to lean in so closely to answer her unasked question, but it didn't hurt to make sure she'd understood him, right? The whole situation was surreal as all hell. Kylo was seriously starting to wonder if it was some sort of fucked-up hallucination Snoke was giving him as a "training exercise," but he doubted that the old creep had the creativity to think of a scenario like this. "Come on," he said, turning down another hallway. "We're almost there." 

It felt like no time at all before they were stopping in front of a line of storage lockers covered in old graffiti. Kylo had a brief moment of panic that he wouldn’t be able to figure out which one the weed was stored in, but that was quickly squashed by the fact that they could smell which locker it was stored in. And why did it make him panic, anyway? It couldn’t have been the idea of letting the others down because he’d been mistaken. He had plenty of practice in disappointing people, as Snoke (and before him, Luke) loved to remind him. 

Snoke. Kylo still couldn’t believe that he’d killed his master. And then he and Rey...they’d fought _so well_ together. He never would have seen that coming, considering the fact that mere days ago he and Rey had been trying to kill each other on the surface of a dying planet. But it felt good. Better than anything had in a long time. Even though the current circumstances were considerably less than ideal, he felt like he was on the right path for the first time in...ever, actually. 

“Oh my stars, that smell,” Poe whispered. If there had been any question that Kylo was leaving them somewhere—and there had been plenty of questions about that—it was clear now that he hadn’t been lying about knowing where Han Solo’s weed stash was. “Are you sure it’s still good to smoke? It’s gotta be what, four decades old?” 

“We don’t know for sure,” Rose said. “It’s possible that people have been in and out of here since the war against the Empire ended.”

Rey looked at Kylo, trying to gauge his reaction. He had his thoughts locked down tight, but there was the slightest twitch to his eye when he said, “I don’t think it’s going to kill us, and if we have to be stuck here, we may as well take advantage of it.”

“I can’t believe we’re breaking into an old locker for decades-old weed on a planet that no one knows exists,” Finn whispered to Rey. “Hard to imagine that our escape from Jakku would land us here, eh?”

Rey gave Finn a tight smile. “Yeah, who’d’ve thought?” Finn could tell that there was something she wasn’t saying, but he doubted he’d get her to spit it out. Not while they were all watching Kylo unlock the storage locker using some sort of Force magic _. No wonder Skywalker put him and Rey in binders,_ Finn thought. No prison that he was aware of would be able to handle people who could do that. 

Something caused both Rey and Kylo to snap to attention, their heads whipping around to stare down the empty corridor. “What is it?” Rose asked. She couldn’t hear anything, but that didn’t mean they weren’t in trouble of getting caught. 

“We need to hurry,” was all that Kylo said in response. It didn’t take long to dig through Han’s old things before he pulled out a crumpled brown bag about the size of his fist. (Not that Rey was paying attention to the size of his hands, or anything.)

“Someone’s coming,” Rey whispered. Finn was about to say _How do you know?_ when he remembered that Force-sensitives were...well, _sensitive_ to the things going on around them. 

“I know, I feel it too.” Kylo didn’t even realize what he’d said until he heard Rey’s sharp inhale. Kriff. He mentally kicked himself for bringing up their past, hoping she wouldn’t say anything about it. 

Until now, this had all felt like a big game to Poe. Get thrown in detention, sneak out for a bit, sneak back in, and eventually the general would cool down and he, Rose, and Finn would go back to doing their normal jobs. But now that there was the prospect of getting caught, he was starting to worry. “Can we go now?” he hissed. 

Rose, Finn, and Poe could hear the footsteps and the faint sound of voices now, coming from around the corner of the corridor they needed to go back down. “Kylo,” Rey whispered. “It’s—“

“I know,” he said, turning in the opposite direction that the voices were coming from. There were very few people whose Force signatures Kylo knew that well, even after years apart. “Let’s go.”


	6. I wanna be a starship racer! I wanna live a life of danger!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starship racer! Life of danger!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i meant to have this up a few days ago but then [i, uh, got sidetracked](https://twitter.com/r_saltghoul/status/1172999845335961600). sorry about that!

Now that there was a real threat of being caught, everyone was feeling various shades of rattled. “That isn’t the way back—“ Rey said as she glanced down the silent corridor, but Poe cut her off.

“We should be able to loop back through an old meeting room there,” he said, following Kylo down the hallway. Rose and Finn exchanged glances, but Rey was already following the other two away from the voices. 

Their steps were quicker now that they were at risk of getting caught, Kylo and Poe arguing in whispers about where they needed to go next. “We’re cut off here.”

“We’re fucked,” Rose said, the reality of the situation dawning on her. She didn’t think that the Resistance would kick them out, persay—not at their current numbers, anyway—but she didn’t want anyone to think that she was anything less than 100% devoted to the cause that Paige had given her life for. 

Paige. What would she say if she could see Rose now, sneaking around an old Rebellion base with Finn, Poe, a Jedi, and Kylo Ren? Rose didn’t know if the thought was going to make her laugh or cry.

_Why did we let Kylo Ren lead us here?_ Finn wondered. “It’s a trap,” he said.

Rose and Rey turned to give him confused looks. “It’s a what?” Rose asked. 

“Kylo Ren is trying to get us kicked out of the Resistance,” Finn said. 

“Why the hell would he do that?” Rose knew that Kylo was far from the most trustworthy individual in the galaxy, but there she doubted that he cared enough to try to get them “kicked out” of the Resistance. It made more sense for him to try to get them on his side, actually, but now that she’d actually met the man behind the mask, it was difficult to picture him persuading them to style their hair differently, never mind leave the cause they’d all give their lives for. 

Poe and Kylo were arguing in increasingly heated whispers. “We need to make a decision,” Poe hissed.

Kylo couldn’t believe that he was about to do something so... _noble_ as to save their sorry asses, but that wasn’t his entire motivation. If he led Luke on a chase through the old, abandoned corridors of the Crait base, maybe he’d finally get his revenge for that night all those years ago. His eyes flickered to meet Rey’s for a moment, and her expression shifted into comprehension. “Ben, don’t do it,” she whispered.

“Do what?” Poe asked.

Instead of answering, Kylo turned to Finn, grabbed him by the collar, and shoved the crumpled brown bag into the jacket. He didn’t wait for an answer before he took off running down the corridor, chasing after the sound of Luke’s voice.

Rey grimaced. _This isn’t going to end well,_ she thought. _Idiot._ She knew what Kylo was expecting from a confrontation with Luke, but she doubted he was going to get it. Luke excelled at not being what people expected him to be. Her time on Ahch-To had taught her many things, none of which was an answer she’d been looking for. 

She probably shouldn’t have been so surprised, however. Being so isolated for so long did funny things to one’s social skills.

_I know what will_ really _grab Luke’s attention,_ Kylo thought, speeding down the corridor. “I wanna be a starship racer! I wanna live a life of danger!” he screamed. “Starship racer! Life of danger!” His uncle had always been very discouraging of that line of thought. _The Jedi don’t seek power. They don’t see conflict. Banthashit._

Rose and Finn exchanged glances as Kylo disappeared around a corner. “Is he…?” she asked. 

“Singing,” Finn said faintly. _Kriff. I’m sneaking around a Resistance base with Han Solo’s old weed stash shoved in my jacket, and the weird part is that Kylo Ren is singing._

Rey and Poe exchanged equally amused glances. “That’s something you don’t see every day,” Poe muttered. “Come on. Let’s get out of here while we can.”

* * *

Leia had left Luke alone in Crait’s back corridors. “Someone needs to scout out back here,” she’d said to him. He was grateful to her for understanding that he’d just spent years alone on an uncharted planet and even though the Resistance wasn’t the biggest group of fighters at the moment, it was still more people than he’d interacted with in years. Besides, he had plenty to think about.

He hadn’t left Ahch-To to become a war hero. He wanted to make that _very_ clear to everyone involved. Nor did he want to train Rey in the Jedi ways. He hadn’t changed his mind about that. But it just didn’t feel right to let her go running after Ben like she had. It was time Luke stopped hiding from his mistakes.

But that didn’t mean he was ready to face his nephew one-on-one yet. As usual, however, the universe wasn’t content to leave him be. He heard Ben before he saw or felt him in the Force. “That kriffing—” Luke muttered as he hurried his steps to chase after his nephew.

Kylo didn’t slow down when he felt Luke lock on to him. If anything, he started singing louder, trying to piss the old man off as much as possible. It wasn’t like his situation could possibly get any worse, anyway. May as well have what fun he could have. (Never mind the fact that _fun_ was such a foreign concept that Kylo was having a hard time imagining what it would involve.) He hoped that the others had made it back to the room without getting caught, which…

Why did he want that?

_Doesn’t matter,_ he told himself as he slowed down. He was far enough away now that it was safe to let Luke catch him. Even though he was unarmed, Luke didn’t know that he wasn’t wearing the cuffs anymore. Kylo had the element of surprise.

_Oh, for the love of—_ Luke shouldn’t have been surprised that the kid still had an attitude. That was something he got from both of his parents. As much as Ben wanted to deny his roots, there was no denying _that_. 

Kylo paused outside of a room that seemed empty but for some floor mats and other training equipment. _Perfect,_ he thought. He doubted that the Rebellion had left anything dangerous behind, but maybe his luck would hold out, especially if— 

_Oh, fuck._ What if Luke still had his lightsaber? Then he would be armed, and Kylo would be unarmed, and it would be just like that night all over again. For the first time, he started to panic. Sure, Luke could come waltzing back in like he’d done nothing wrong, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to try to kill Kylo again. In the haze of his panic, he must have let his mental shields slip, because he felt a vaguely reassuring feeling coming from Rey. That was...really nice, actually, considering what he was about to do. Or try to do, anyway. He knew he sure as shit didn’t have her blessing, but it was nice to know that she still cared enough that she didn’t want to feel him panic.

“Ben,” Luke called out as he neared the room he’d just seen his nephew dart into. “Let’s talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Kylo growled, looking around for something he could use as a weapon. _Bare hands it is, then,_ he thought as Luke opened the door. He was enough of a weapon on his own. Snoke’s training had seen to that. “You tried to kill me. You failed. Now it’s my turn.”

“You don’t really want that,” Luke said calmly, further infuriating Kylo.

“Yes, I do!” There was a tremor in the Force that betrayed his nephew’s true feelings on the matter. Luke may have been out-of-practice, but Ben hadn’t changed as much as he thought he had, because Luke could still recognize some of his tells. The fact that he’d somehow managed to get out of the Force-suppressing cuffs was actually working against him.

Luke had a sinking suspicion about who had helped him out of those. He’d have to talk with Rey later about what was and wasn’t an inappropriate use of the Force.

He sighed. “Come on, kid,” he said. “Let’s go talk about this somewhere else.” He knew it was uncomfortable being cut off from the Force, but it was a matter of public safety (at least until they could convince the Jedi academy drop-out to chill, anyway).

“Fight me.” _Come on,_ Kylo pleaded silently. _Do it, start a fight, I will_ end _you_.

“Nope,” Luke said. “Come on.” He’d long ago destroyed his lightsaber ( _I’m not fit to carry this anymore,_ he’d told himself as he’d dropped the pieces into the Ahch-To sea), but he’d picked up a blaster earlier, just in case. You could never be too prepared when wandering through a base that hadn’t been used by humans in decades. Luke still had nightmares about his time spent on Hoth, more than three decades later. 

When Kylo didn’t budge, Luke sighed. “Come on,” he said again, turning to leave. “You want to fight? Let’s go do it properly.” He didn’t plan on actually fighting his nephew, but they couldn’t keep hanging out in an old training room. Besides, he still needed to talk to Leia and explain what had actually happened that night. 

Kylo sure as hell didn’t trust Luke, but if he followed him, then Luke wouldn’t be able to sneak up on him. “Fine,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m still going to kill you, though.”

_We’ll see about that,_ Luke thought as he turned (faster than he probably should have, given how out of practice he was) and hurled a dart full of a sedative at Kylo, striking him on the neck.

* * *

“Why did Kylo do that?” Rose asked as soon as they were safely back in the detention room.

Finn and Poe looked at Rey. If anyone knew what his motivations were, it was her. To be fair, she did know what he wanted to do; she just wasn’t sure how to explain _how_ she knew that. 

“He’s been after Skywalker for a while hasn’t he?” Poe asked. “That’s why he was on Jakku. I went there to get the map piece from Lor San Tekka, and Kylo captured me.” 

“You don’t think he’s going to kill Luke, do you?” Rose was beginning to regret letting him out of those cuffs, even if he had found them weed. 

“No,” Rey said, sensing Kylo’s panic. “They do have some things they need to hash out, though.” _That’s putting it mildly._

“Like what?” Rose had only heard the vaguest rumors about what had happened the night Luke Skywalker disappeared, but it was becoming more and more clear that it also coincided with the creation of Kylo Ren. 

“Oh, you know,” Rey said, gesturing vaguely. “Things.”

It was clear that Rey knew the full story, even though she wasn’t saying anything. That surprised Finn. Why was she keeping his secrets? He’d kidnapped and tried to kill her, last Finn knew. What the hell had changed between them?

The bigger question, in Poe’s opinion, was: Why was Rey being so cagey about this? “What aren’t you telling us?” he asked.

_Kriff._ Rey didn’t have a good answer to that. “It’s not my story to tell,” she said, looking down at the ground.

“Does this have anything to do with why Skywalker put you in those cuffs, too?” Rose asked. They all took Rey’s lack of response as a _yes._ “Are you two, like...friends?” 

Rey’s gazed snapped up to give the three of them an expression that was somewhere between horrified and embarrassed. _Not friends, then,_ Rose thought. _But they’re something._ What an intriguing idea, a desert scavenger and a Darth Vader-wannabe becoming a _something._ If she’d been on better terms with either of them, Rose would press them for details. This was juicy.

Rey was saved at having to figure out a response to that question by Luke bursting into the room, sans Kylo. Rey felt her heartbeat jump in her throat. If Luke was here, where was Kylo? Surely he wasn’t actually trying to kill his way out of here…

Right?

Luke pushed past the four of them, ignoring their blatantly obvious nonverbal questions: _Why are you here? Where is Kylo? Are we free to go now?_ He didn’t have a lot of time; he’d stunned his nephew and locked him in an old jail cell (he’d found the actual detention block earlier), but he needed to get the Force-suppressing cuffs back before Kylo woke up. This was far from the best plan he’d ever had, but he didn’t trust Kylo and Rey together. The last thing he needed was to have to navigate their attempts to conceal their attraction to each other. _Ugh._

Rey was on high alert, trying to figure out if Luke had done something to Kylo. She tapped into the bond, but there was nothing that she could sense there. Just a vague blur of… “Did you knock Kylo out?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. 

Luke froze. “I put him in an actual jail cell,” he said, leaning over to grab the Force-suppressing cuffs off of the table that Rey and Kylo had been sitting at earlier. “We’ll talk about this later.” He left without another word.

_Shit,_ Rose thought. _I hope he doesn’t ask who took the cuffs off._ She didn’t need to dig herself any deeper into this than she already had.

“So,” Finn said, letting out a breath with a shaky laugh. “That was weird, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [let's all just take a moment to imagine kylo doing this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpriWNBHCVk)


	7. You spend a lot of your free time tied up?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke has some conversations, and the Crait Breakfast Club breaks into Han Solo’s old weed stash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on "Sincerely Yours, The Crait Breakfast Club": The five delinquents break out of Crait detention to sneak around the base in search of Han Solo's old weed stash. They find it and almost get caught in the process. Kylo provides a distraction by leading Luke on a chase around the base while the other four sneak back to Crait detention. Luke catches up to Kylo, knocks him out, and drags him to Crait jail, while Rose, Poe, and Finn wonder why Rey is so weird about Kylo.

Kylo wasn’t surprised to find that he’d woken up in an old jail cell. This was what he had been expecting upon his arrival (he refused to call it a _return_ ) to his mother’s band of war criminals. In fact, this actually made him feel a little calmer about the situation. It was the expected response, and Kylo didn’t do well with unexpected.

“Sleep well?” If Kylo hadn’t been laying on the only furniture in the cell, he would have thrown it at the transparisteel that Luke Skywalker was standing on the other side of. 

“Come out and fight me, you coward,” he growled. Or tried to, anyway. Being trapped in a cell with Luke on the other side of it was making his palms sweat, and he found himself wishing that Rey were there with him. He didn’t even have the option of tapping into the bond to check in with her, thanks to the Force-suppressing cuffs he was now sporting again. And, okay, not that he _needed_ someone to hold his hand, but Rey knew the full story and she was the only person in the galaxy who seemed to be on his side about it. 

Luke sighed. This was going exactly as he thought it was going to go. “I don’t want to fight you, Ben,” he said. “But I can’t just leave you with the others, now that we’ve figured out where the jail cells on this base are. You understand why, right?”

Kylo was so livid, he couldn’t even speak. How _dare_ Luke act like Kylo was the only one at fault here? It was so kriffing typical of him to act like he was perfect simply because he hadn’t had to live with a voice in the back of his head feeding him lies since he was a child. _Like he’s never been tempted by the dark side!_

That had come out in a more condescending tone than Luke had intended. He knew that he’d fucked up, too. He’d been positive that Rey had said something to Kylo about the confrontation she’d had with Luke on Ahch-To, but now he was starting to rethink that. Maybe she _hadn’t_ told him that she’d started a fight with Luke over him. Maybe they weren’t as close as Luke had originally suspected. 

The fireside hand-holding, though. That was still suspicious.

It didn’t matter right now, in any case. Kylo was safely locked in the jail cell, the other four delinquents were going through the old files in the detention room, and Leia was still busy trying to help everyone get settled for the time being. Still, Luke had to try. “I failed you, Ben,” he said. “I’m sorry.” 

_I failed you._ The words were so unexpected that Kylo’s brain almost didn’t process them as Basic. They were probably spoken in an attempt to talk him down, but instead, it just made him even angrier. “I’m sure you are,” he spat. _It’s a little late for apologies, Uncle._

Clearly, it was no use trying to get through to his nephew right now. Maybe he’d respond better to Leia, instead. He seemed to listen to Rey, but Luke didn’t think that she was completely objective where Kylo was concerned. He had to give it one more try, though. “I mean that, Ben,” he said sadly. “I’m sorry.”

The way that Luke said his birth name was so different from the way Rey said it, and Kylo couldn’t put his finger on why. Maybe it was because Luke wielded it like a weapon, like he was trying to make Kylo remember the past and who he’d been before he was Kylo Ren. When Rey said it, on the other hand, it was like she believed that he was better than the person he’d been under Snoke.

He’d killed his master. He’d killed his master, and he’d killed him for _her_. Kylo hadn’t quite processed that yet, and he didn’t want to open that can of worms with Luke around. Maybe if he ignored Luke for long enough, he’d leave him alone again.

Luke wasn’t going to get anything out of his nephew. Not right now, anyway. The wound was too fresh, and nobody had slept properly in days. It was time to admit defeat. “We’re not finished with this conversation,” he said before turning to leave.

Kylo let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. With Luke gone, he could breathe a little more easily, even though he was locked in a cell. It wasn’t going to be able to hold him, though. Even with the Force-suppressing cuffs, Kylo was more than capable of figuring out a way out of this old cell. This part of the base hadn’t been touched in four decades. Everything was a little dilapidated. It was only a matter of figuring out the weak points in the ceiling. _It’s a good thing I’m so tall,_ he thought as he started to analyze the structure of the cell.

He would get out. And then he’d sneak back in to partake in the weed he’d dug out of Han’s old storage locker. He’d kriffing earned it.

* * *

Rose, Finn, and Poe hadn’t actually said anything aloud, but the glances they were all sharing with each other were clear: _There’s something weird about Rey and Kylo._ Not long after Luke had disappeared with the cuffs, she’d gone pale and had seemed restless and uncomfortable ever since. They’d mostly left her to her own devices as they sorted through the old files and equipment in the room, as per the General’s instructions.

“I can’t believe you guys made it off of the _Supremacy_ alive,” Poe said. “I thought for sure we’d lost you.” He was still amazed at the way that Rose and Finn had gone off to Canto Bight without a second thought. Finn’s bravery had amazed him ever since they’d escaped the First Order together, but Rose...well, he’d never have expected a mechanic to be as ready to rush into danger as she was. The thought of losing them was terrifying because it was so personal. Yes, he wanted everyone in the Resistance to survive their battles and missions, but there was something special about these two.

Poe was looking at Finn and Rose in a way that made Finn squirm. He’d never had a good lesson in how to handle friendships; it was frowned upon in stormtrooper training, and up until that night on Jakku, Finn had been an excellent student. These friendships were extra confusing—he liked Rose, and he liked Poe. There was just something about going off on clandestine missions that formed a bond between the people involved, he supposed. 

The reminder of what had happened on the _Supremacy_ was sobering for both Finn and Rose. Rose thanked all of her lucky stars by name and system that they’d made it out of there and back home to the Resistance. She looked from Poe to Finn, then back to Poe. “I can’t, either,” she admitted. “It’s all a blur of adrenaline and explosions, to be honest. As bad as our current situation is, it’s nice to be able to stop and catch my breath with you two.” Rose was amused to see the way Finn and Poe exchanged glances, both blushing. She was, too. It was...nice, actually. 

There was a sudden crash, followed by a shout as Kylo fell through the ceiling, still bound in the Force-suppressing cuffs. He stood up as smoothly as he could manage with his hands tied in front of him. He was still searching for the perfect snippy remark when Rose said, “How the hell did you manage to sneak around with your hands bound?” 

Kylo looked down at the cuffs and shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of practice,” he said. Being forced to run through an obstacle course without full use of his body sucked, but at least all the agony was paying off. This was definitely not what Snoke had intended for him to use those skills for, but whatever. He was dead now. _Good riddance, you old bastard._

“You spend a lot of your free time tied up?” The words were put before Poe could stop them. He couldn’t tell if Kylo’s face turned red due to embarrassment or anger. Embarrassment, he hoped. _I should probably stop trying to piss Kylo Ren off._ Why was it so much fun to tease the higher-ups in the First Order? 

Rey was all too aware of what life had been like as the Supreme Leader’s apprentice, thanks to the memories she’d accidentally glanced from Kylo. “Knock it off, Poe,” she snapped. He gave her an amused look, although she couldn’t figure out what he could possibly find amusing about the situation.

“Why come back?” Poe asked Kylo. 

“After all that effort I went to, getting that weed?” He held out his wrists. “Let me out of these and I’ll show you guys how to smoke it.”

Rose and Poe already knew how to smoke a joint ( _Why is he acting like it’s difficult?_ Rose wondered), but it didn’t seem like it was going to do any harm to let him out. Besides, they’d let him out once already and he hadn’t hurt anyone. Unless he was the type of person to wait until their guard was down, but that led back to the logic of _Where is he going to go, anyway? We’re all stranded here for now._

“Let him out,” Rey said. She felt like it was obvious how uncomfortable she was, being Force bonded to someone who was cut off from it, but before she could say anything else, Rose was already leaning over the table to pick up the tool she’d used to remove them the first time around. She and Kylo let out identical sighs of relief when the cuffs were off again. Rey tried not to think too hard about what that meant.

“Finally,” Kylo muttered. He held out his hand for the bag of weed, but Poe beat him to it and was already rolling the first joint.

* * *

The distress calls had been sent out. What was left of the Resistance's fleet was parked and a list of repairs had been catalogued. More and more people were crashing hard after the adrenaline of having to outrun the First Order's entire fleet. As far as anyone could tell, they were all safe for now. The First Order had turned tail to recuperate in some other part of the galaxy. Leia knew that they weren't going to be able to stay on Crait for long, but they weren't going anywhere until they could fix some of the repairs to their remaining ships. Besides, the defenses of the Crait base were strong, even if they were more than four decades old. 

That was to say: it was finally time for everyone to take a kriffing break. A few crew members were awake enough to keep an eye on the radar to watch for another attack from the First Order, but almost everyone had passed out. Most of them had made it into the barracks, but Leia had spotted more than a few napping on various piles of equipment and supplies. She hadn't forgotten about the five people she and Luke had thrown into that old storage room, but she'd left Luke to deal with that while she got the rest of the temporary base up and running.

_They're probably fine. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Dameron is too smart to let anyone get hurt,_ she figured. Besides, Luke was there to keep an eye out.

Still, Leia couldn't put off talking to him any longer. It wasn't going to be the easiest conversation. She'd missed her brother, but she was still pissed off at him for running away the night...well, everyone had made a lot of mistakes in the events leading up to that night. Maybe Leia had never taken to using Anakin's name, but that didn’t mean she could escape the Skywalker flair for epic fuck-ups and drama. It seemed to be a genetic trait.

Likewise, Luke also knew that the conversation he and Leia were about to have was not going to be easy, but it had been a long time coming. He wasn't surprised to find himself walking to her makeshift office, letting instinct guide him to her. He still hadn't quite figured out how to ease himself back into the Force yet, but she'd been the first person he'd sensed in the Force when he'd opened himself up to it again, right before he and Rey fought on Ahch-To. Leia had already dug up a couple of cans of old beer from the stores on Crait before Luke arrived. There was a very good chance that the beer wasn't going to be any good, but they both needed to have a drink in hand for this. Wordlessly, Luke slipped into her office and shut the door behind him.

Neither of them knew how to start the conversation, although they both knew that they probably should have prepared for this. They sipped their beer in silence before Luke finally spoke up. "I made a big mistake," he admitted, staring down at the old can of beer in his hand. 

"We all made mistakes," Leia said, as much to herself as to Luke.

"No," Luke said, shaking his head. "I mean, I _really_ made a big mistake."

Something in Luke's tone caused Leia to straighten up and narrow her eyes at him. "How big, on a scale of ‘killing your wife in an attempt to save her life' to ‘granting a Sith lord power over the entire galaxy’?"

"Definitely closer to the Sith lord power granting end of that spectrum."

Leia grew more and more alarmed as some of the pieces snapped into place. "What happened the night Ben left the temple?" she asked, no longer sure she actually wanted the answer.

Luke prepared himself to give the same speech he'd given Rey. The words were just as difficult to say the second time around as the first. "I had a moment of weakness," he explained. "I sensed the growing darkness in him."

_We all did,_ thought Leia, but she let her brother continue. It was something she’d been able to sense even before her son was born, and she still felt guilt over how she’d dealt (or rather, _hadn’t_ dealt) with it.

"I thought I knew the way to stop it." The words were growing harder and harder to say. "I thought there was no other way out."

Leia was momentarily frozen, unable to react as the implication of Luke’s words hit her. A _What in all the hells were you thinking?_ was not adequate for what she was feeling, followed closely by _No wonder you ran away._ She stood up suddenly, her expression carefully neutral in that way that politicians excelled at. Luke gave her an apprehensive look, at a complete loss for what to expect from her. "Here's what we're going to do," she said slowly. "I'm going to get another beer, and then we're going to figure out a way out of this mess." Alcohol wasn't necessarily the best problem solver, but at this point, she didn't think things could get any worse.

* * *

Unbeknownst to the Skywalker twins, the five delinquents on the other side of the base were about to engage in their own round of “blowing off steam with intoxicants.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been on (unexpected) hiatus for reasons (and am still on semi-hiatus), hence the gap between updates. I'm going to try a Wednesday update schedule for the rest of this, schedule permitting (as always). I wrote this out-of-order so I do have a completed draft of the rest of this that I intend to finish posting, but there are only so many hours in the day and I've got other stuff going on.


	8. Space weed II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo and Rose bond while Rey, Finn, and Poe catch up on what they’ve been up to lately.

“This was definitely not allowed in the stormtrooper barracks,” Finn said as he passed the joint back to Kylo.

“No, they have a pretty strict no-intoxicants policy, don’t they?” he replied. A moment later, he realized what he’d said: _they_. Not _we._ Judging by the looks on the faces around him, the others were having the same realization.

Poe had half a mind to ask Kylo if he’d ever hotboxed his helmet, but judging from his stricken expression of how he’d just referred to the First Order as a _them_ , it was probably best not to make any sudden movements. 

“Couldn’t get it on Jakku, either,” Rey said, suddenly feeling a need to break the tension. There were plenty of intoxicants available, just not this particular one. No one wanted to smoke, not when there was so little moisture in the atmosphere to begin with. “Plenty of spice traders came through, though.” Intoxicants had never been her thing. This particular one, however, didn’t seem so bad. Mostly, it was just making her hungry, but it seemed to have a relaxing effect on everyone. _Force knows we all need it,_ she thought as she passed the joint to Rose.

“Paige and I tried it once, a couple years ago,” Rose said. “She didn’t like the taste much, but we both liked how giggly we got.” 

After a couple more rounds, Rey said something about looking for snacks. Finn and Poe got up to go help her look, leaving Rose and Kylo sitting at the table. She glanced over at him, but he was busy staring at Rey, Finn, and Poe. 

_Rey. Food. Let her find food._ Weed never made Kylo very hungry, but if Rey wanted to eat, he wanted to help her find food. Except maybe not right now, when she was busy talking and laughing with Finn and Dameron. Kylo was feeling way too lazy to interrupt that. _It’s fine. I can watch her. That’s healthy. Right?_

Rose studied Kylo as he watched the other three people in the room laughing at each others’ jokes. _That’s a strange expression to see on the face of a First Order human weapon,_ she thought. It looked almost like… “Holy shit,” she breathed.

Kylo jumped at the sound of Rose’s voice. “What?” he snapped, not taking his eyes off of Rey.

“You’re in love with Rey.” Now that she’d said it, it was so kriffing obvious. No wonder he hadn’t tried to murder his way out of the room. Rose had no doubt that even with the Force-restraining binders, he would have been able to do it.

Kylo did his best to force his face into an expression of neutrality. “Shut up,” he said. “I’m not in love with Rey. _You’re_ in love with Rey.”

“I barely even know Rey,” Rose hissed. “Although I can see the appeal.” Rey was a complete and utter badass. Even without all the time she’d spent listening to Finn talk her ear off about the Jedi, it had taken Rose about half a second to figure that out.

“I’m not in love with Rey,” Kylo repeated, even though he knew it was a lie. _It would explain a lot if that’s what’s going on,_ he thought. He’d never been in love, but his parents’ relationship had taught him you couldn’t pick and choose who you fell in love with, and who you usually fell in love with was someone you fought with a lot.

“I’m not even Force-sensitive and I know you’re lying,” Rose said a little too gleefully. “Does Rey know?”

“No,” Kylo snapped. His outburst was loud enough to make Rey, Finn, and Poe pause and look over at where he and Rose were sitting, sharing the last of the space weed. _Oh kriff no she can’t know don’t let her know—_

“Everything okay over there?” Poe asked with a casualness that neither Rey nor Finn was able to manage.

“Everything’s great,” Rose said, sounding too cheery for someone who was sharing a joint with the former Supreme Leader’s apprentice-slash-killer. Rey frowned. She desperately wanted to know what they were talking about. Based on Kylo’s thinly-veiled expression of panic, it was something worth being aware of. Rey doubted that he was in any danger from the mechanic, but you could never be sure. Appearances were deceiving, after all. Many a scavenger or Teedo on Jakku had learned that the hard way when trying to get the jump on Rey.

“Everything is _not_ great,” Kylo muttered. This was an even bigger disaster than his attempt to interrogate Rey. He was doing something very wrong if this random-ass mechanic could figure out that he was in love with Rey before he did. 

“How can she _not_ know?” Rose whispered. “Don’t you two have, like, some sort of weird Force thing?” Not that she really knew how the Force worked, but Paige had spun her plenty of tales about it when they were younger.

Oh, if only Paige could see Rose now, sitting in detention with a bunch of Resistance heroes, making the wannabe-Sith lord squirm as she made accusations about his love life. _You’d never believe this, Pae-Pae._

“How did you know about that?” Kylo asked sharply. He hadn’t told anyone about it. He’d never _wanted_ anyone to know about it. Thinking about the fact that Snoke had orchestrated the whole thing still made his stomach curdle.

Oh. Maybe that was another tip-off that he was in love with Rey, wanting to keep their bond to himself. As was the fact that he felt a weird sense of pride every time he looked in the mirror and let his eyes trace over the scar that was running down his face and chest. 

(Actually, wait. That also explained some of the more, uh, _physical_ reactions he’d been having recently. Sure, sex and love weren’t always the same thing, but they did often go hand-in-hand. Even Kylo knew _that._ )

“So there _is_ a weird Force thing between you two, then?” Rose asked. “How does that even work? Can you hear each other’s thoughts?” _Stars, that must be crazy. Imagine being in Kylo Ren’s head all the time._ It sounded like Rose’s personal hell, although maybe Force-sensitives were into that sort of thing.

“It’s not that crude,” Kylo said. “I can’t hear her—why am I even telling you this, anyway?”

“Oh my stars, this is too good to be real,” Rose said. She sounded way too gleeful for Kylo’s liking. “When did it start? Did you recognize each other before you met, like a Force vision thing?” 

“Of course not,” he retorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not how the Force works.”

“I’ve read holonovels,” Rose said. “I’m a sucker for a good forbidden Jedi romance story.”

“We’re not Jedi,” Kylo muttered. “And it’s not like that.” Before she could say anything else about Rey, he shot back, “What about you?”

“Me and Rey? We just met, although she’s pretty great. Huge fan. You have good taste.” _WHAT ARE YOU SAYING TO KYLO KRIFFING REN RIGHT NOW_ , her inner voice screamed at her. He seemed like he was volatile enough to flying to a jealous rage at the tip of a hat (or helmet, as the case may be). And yet he...wasn’t. He seemed more shell-shocked than anything.

That was probably just the weed, though.

Kylo shook his head. “No, I mean you, Finn, and Dameron.” He’d only said it in an attempt to piss her off and take the focus off of himself a bit, but judging from the way her cheeks turned pink, he’d hit a nerve. _Good._ “Surely something happened on your little field trip to the _Supremacy_? Why the hell were you there, anyway?” There was no way that Finn wanted to join back up with the stormtroopers. Phasma would have his head on a platter if he showed back up after that escape he’d made with Poe.

If Rose was being honest, her _thing_ with Finn and Poe had begun before then. Meeting them had been surreal, after all of the gossip and stories she’d heard from Paige and the other pilots, especially considering the fact that she’d had to stun Finn into not running away. She’d never, ever, not in a million years, have guessed that she’d actually be a part of one of those stories. “They’re heroes,” she said. “They—we—were trying to save lives.”

“By doing what, blowing up the First Order flagship?” _Trust a so-called Resistance hero to murder millions of people and claim it’s in the name of saving lives._ History had a way of repeating itself: first the Rebellion, and now the Resistance. 

Rose surprised him, however. “No. We were trying to break the tracking device that was locked onto the _Raddus._ Hyperspace tracking may be new technology, but Finn and I figured out how to break it. Poe was our cover.” She grimaced. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we didn’t exactly have approval for that decision.” 

Kylo snorted. “Yeah, good going,” he said.

“It worked, didn’t it?” 

“For now.” There was a pause as they both considered the future. Kylo knew that the First Order wasn’t going to give up that easily, but without Snoke, they were going to be scrambling to get organized. He’d always figured that Hux was the winner of the “Most Likely To Kill His Way To the Top” award; without Kylo or Snoke around, he was probably going to achieve that much more easily now. _Shit, I still can’t believe that this mechanic_ bit _him_ , he thought with a grin.

Meanwhile, Rey, Finn, and Poe were in search of snacks on the other side of the room. “You do realize that even if we find food, it’s likely inedible now, right?” Finn asked.

“Don’t care,” Rey said. “I’ve eaten worse.”

Finn and Poe exchanged glances. They’d both seen Jakku. “So Rey,” Poe said, trying to sound casual. “What’s the deal with you and Darth Tantrum?” Finn tried (and failed) to smother a laugh. _Darth Tantrum is right,_ he thought.

_Oh shit, no, don’t make me talk about this._ “What do you mean, what’s the deal?” She mentally cursed herself for letting a slight tremor slip into her voice.

“Last I knew, you two were trying to kill each other on Starkiller Base,” Finn said. “What the hell happened?”

It was a valid question. “Oh,” Rey said, fumbling for a reasonable explanation. “That. Well. It’s complicated.”

“That’s not an answer,” Poe said.

“Too bad. It’s the only answer I’ve got.”

Why was she so cagey about him? First, there was that weird tension she had while he was cut off from the Force. Now, she knew more than she was letting on, and she was doing a terrible job of covering for herself. Was that how normal Force-sensitives acted? Neither Poe nor Finn had met many.

Poe narrowed his eyes at Rey’s blush. “Wait a minute,” he said as something dawned on him. “Did you two…?” 

Rey had a bad feeling about where he was going with this. “Did we what?” she snapped.

“ _You know_ ,” Poe said, making a gesture that neither Rey nor Finn understood. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Did you two bone?” Rey’s reaction was a riot; Poe found it amusing how red her face got.

Finn, on the other hand, did not. “Is that why you were on the _Supremacy_?” he hissed. “You slept with Kylo Ren?”

“What the—no!” Sure, the thought had _maybe_ crossed her mind once or twice. Per day. Since they’d met. After discovering they could touch through the Force bond, her mind had gone to some decidedly less chaste places, wondering what the limits of that were. Not that she’d ever admit that to anyone, even under torture. Discomfort clouded Rey’s thoughts until one small detail of her trip to the First Order flagship made its way to the top of her mind. “Holy shit,” she said, not registering that she was actually speaking aloud. “I grabbed his thigh.”

“You _what_?” asked Poe and Finn in unison.

_Kriff. I just said that aloud, didn’t I?_ She sneaked a glance at Kylo and Rose, who were engrossed in their own conversation. _Good. I don’t think he heard that. Does he realize that happened?!_ There had been a lot going on at the time. Maybe it was fine. Maybe there was no need to panic. Maybe Rey could just ignore the strange stirring she was feeling deep in her belly when she thought about grabbing Kylo’s thigh again, preferably sometime when they were both actually paying attention. And, like, alone. Not locked in a room with three other people and the constant threat of his uncle coming back in to cockblock them again.

Or maybe it was all a huge mistake and she was just too hungry to think straight. “I have no idea what we’re talking about.” It wasn’t even completely false; she’d already forgotten how the conversation had gotten to that point. “Oh, hey,” she said, holding up a dusty box. “I found the snacks.”


	9. A million credits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Crait Breakfast Club discuss what they’d do for a million credits, and then some other things as well.

“What would you do for a million credits?” Poe asked. The five of them had all regrouped and were now sitting on the floor of the detention room (or library; they couldn’t quite agree on what the room’s original use had been). Conversation was a lot less stilted now than it had been during their disappointing “meal” of old ration packs earlier, and he was curious about everyone’s limits. A million credits was a lot of money, which they were in sore need of. How far was everyone willing to go for it?

Rey thought the answer was obvious. “I’d do as little as I needed to do.”

“That’s boring,” Poe said.

“Well, how am I supposed to answer?”

Poe had to think about this one. “You’re supposed to find your absolute limit,” he said. “Like, would you go to work naked?”

Kylo willed himself to look as uninterested as possible, ignoring the look Rose shot his way. He was _very_ curious about this answer, but it wouldn’t do to reveal just how much.

“For a million credits?” Rey wasn’t sure what her “job” was these days. Jedi training? It wasn’t like she was going back to Jakku to scavenge. That option was closed, and good riddance. _Well, depending on who I was training with…_ Unhelpfully, her first thought was _What if it was just me and Kylo?_ The answer slipped out before she had a chance to think too hard about it. “Yes.”

Rose was trying not to laugh at Kylo’s attempt at an uninterested expression. The tips of his ears turning red gave him away. And then there was the certainty in Rey’s tone… 

There was one major flaw in Rey’s plan, from Kylo’s perspective. (Okay, a lot of major flaws, the least of which was _What is her job, anyway?_ and _Am I involved somehow?_ ) “You’re from Jakku. Wouldn’t sand get everywhere? It’s coarse and rough and irritating. Or so I hear.” 

Actually, where had he heard that? He hadn’t spent much time on desert planets. Was it something Luke had said about growing up on Tatooine? Kylo didn’t have a lot of memories of Luke discussing his childhood, though, so it was probably someone else.

“I’m not going back to Jakku.” _We already had this discussion, you dick._

The mention of their argument on the _Supremacy_ was enough to kill Kylo’s libido. Even though it was a reminder of all of the reasons why he and Rey were never going to work, he was grateful for the distraction.

“I take it _you_ wouldn’t show up to work naked?” Rose asked, unable to keep from provoking Kylo further. Which was probably a bad idea, but at this point, she was pretty sure she was safe from him by the logic of ‘Rey would hate Kylo for killing another member of the Resistance, and Kylo absolutely did not want Rey to hate him.’ 

There was a sarcastic remark about that one time on Ahch-To on the tip of Rey’s tongue, but she managed to restrain herself. She’d already let slip one comment about Kylo’s body. She didn’t need to give Finn and Poe another reason to be suspicious as to the truth about her feelings for him.

Which was a whole other problem, the fact that she felt anything for him at all. _Kriff._ And now she was thinking about him naked. Again. _Double kriff._

Kylo, meanwhile, was refusing to make eye contact with anyone in the room while he scrambled to find a good way to respond to that. “I don’t—didn’t even wander around without my helmet on, even during my extremely limited free time.” The last couple of days didn’t count. That time Rey had caught him half-naked _definitely_ didn’t count. 

“That’s true,” Finn said. “No one knew what his face looked like. We all assumed he was part machine.” He looked over at Kylo. “No offense,” he added, hoping that would soften any blow that the words had.

“None taken. It was the look I was going for.” Kylo hadn’t wanted to go so far as to start a losing duel on Mustafar in order to emulate his grandfather. Losing a limb may have been a family tradition, but it was one that he wasn’t in any rush to participate in.

“I’d do it,” Rose said suddenly. “For a million credits? I’d show up to work naked.”

The other four people in the room all exchanged glances. “Really?” Finn asked. Not that he was opposed to seeing Rose naked, exactly, but it got pretty cold in space.

“We need the money,” she said, quieter now. “And it’s my fault that we’re in the state we’re in.”

“No it isn’t,” Poe said. “You were the one who figured out how to stop us from being tracked through hyperspace. That was brilliant.” He was still not over the fact that the shy mechanic who had helped him out of a jam before was the woman sitting across the circle from him. “So what if the plan didn’t...well, didn’t go according to plan? That’s not your fault.”

“If anyone is at fault,” Finn interrupted. “It’s me. I was the one who got so distracted in Canto Bight. If I’d been more focused on the mission, we’d have found Maz’s master codebreaker sooner, and we wouldn’t have had to rely on that bastard who sold us out to the First Order.” Now that he’d admitted to the guilt that had been plaguing him, he felt marginally better. Freer. He was afraid to look up and make eye contact, knowing that Rose and Poe would be giving him accusatory looks. They were going to look at him differently now, he just knew it. Rose had already caught him trying to take the coward’s way out once. He wasn’t sure he’d earned her respect, now that he’d admitted to his guilt in the disaster that had led to so much of the Resistance losing their lives.

Poe hated the next words that came out of his mouth, but they needed to be said. “I fucked up, too. Maybe I didn’t like Vice Admiral Holdo, but I’ve gotten so many of us killed by ignoring orders.” If he was being honest with himself, he still thought she was wrong to keep him in the dark. But whatever; it didn’t change the fact that he ignored a direct order from a superior. Multiple times.

Rey and Kylo listened to the exchange, unsure of what to say. Neither of them had been present for any of the events being discussed, but if it kept the other three from asking about what they’d been up to, neither of them was going to stop the conversation. Rey, in particular, was dreading having to answer the question of “What did you do to Luke Skywalker?” She looked at Kylo, who was looking down at the floor, deep in thought.

Well, okay. Kylo wasn’t all that deep in thought. Mostly he was wondering what the hell had taken these Resistance fighters all the way to Canto Bight in the middle of a high-speed chase.

"We got so many people killed," Rose whispered. 

"They all knew what they were signing up for when they joined up with the Resistance," Kylo said, unable to stop himself from reminding everyone that "Resistance = bad."

"And your hands are so clean?" Rose asked before she could stop herself.

"I know I fucked up." The words were sharp, inviting no further commentary. "I don't need any reminders." If Kylo stopped and thought about the depth to which he'd fucked things up, he'd implode. Or cry, which was even worse.

_Time to list our crimes off,_ Poe thought. "So that's disobeying orders," he said, pointing at himself. "Getting distracted in Canto Bight," nodding at Finn. "Starting us on this risky plan in the first place," indicating Rose. "Self-explanatory," smirking at Kylo. He turned to Rey, who was looking up at the corner of the ceiling like it was the most fascinating thing in the galaxy. "What did you do, Rey?"

"I—" _Quick, think of something that sounds reasonable._ "Master Skywalker thought that it would be educational for me to spend some time in here."

"Banthashit," Poe and Kylo said in unison.

Rey felt her face heat up. "It's not a complete lie," she muttered, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. It was a defensive posture, which only deepened the mystery of what Rey had done to make Luke Skywalker so pissed off.

"Come on," Finn said. "We're all admitting to our fuck-ups. It's cathartic. Really." Actually, it was still mostly relief he was feeling about the fact that he didn't have to report for reconditioning, but it was close enough to catharsis that he could claim it as such.

"What did you do, Rey?" Kylo asked, unable to hold back any longer. They both knew that he had the ability to break into her mind to find the truth, but Kylo wanted the answer to be given instead of stolen. It felt a lot better like that.

Rey, in turn, was oddly appreciative of the fact that Kylo was respecting her personal boundaries. However, she still wasn't going to admit to anything if she didn't have to.

But the peer pressure was mounting in the room. "Tell us," Rose urged. "It can't possibly be any worse than anything else the rest of us have done, can it?" Some part of Rose knew that it was entirely likely that Rey had a dark side, but so did everyone, didn't they? It wasn't just restricted to the Force. 

Poe was the one to finally make her break as he started listing crimes, each more ridiculous than the last. "Fine," Rey snapped after being accused of trying to cash a 350 billion-credit check (whatever that meant; she didn’t know how to convert it to rations). "You want the truth?" She stole one last quick look at Kylo before she continued. "I started a fight with Luke." 

Rose, Finn, and Poe exchanged glances, but Kylo kept his gaze on Rey the entire time. "Not just any fight, I gather," he said in a voice barely louder than a murmur.

"Not just any fight," Rey repeated, nodding. "It was after—well." She looked down, cheeks red.

Kylo knew what she meant, and he hurried to move the conversation forward before the other three could ask what they were talking about. It was personal, and it was bad enough that Luke had known about it. Getting metaphorically cockblocked by his uncle was not something he was in any particular rush to relive. "Why?" he asked instead.

Rey sighed. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh no, now you have to tell us," Rose protested. "What could be so bad that Luke Skywalker thought you needed to be thrown in Force-suppressing binders?" She had a feeling she knew what—or rather, _who_ the fight had been about, given the intensity of the looks Kylo was giving Rey. And sure, it wasn't really anyone else's business, but come on, there _had_ to be a good story there. _I think they're what they call 'star-crossed lovers,'_ she thought. _What a strange situation to be in._ While she wasn’t completely sure where she, Finn, and Poe stood with each other, at least none of them could be described as ‘star-crossed’ anything.

"It had something to do with him, right?" Poe said, nodding at Kylo.

Rey saw no point in denying that fact; it was obvious by now. "Yes.”

Poe grinned. He doubted that Rey had been bluffing when she’d said that she and Kylo hadn’t slept together—she wasn’t that good of a liar—but she definitely _wanted_ to. He couldn’t say he quite saw the appeal himself, but then again, he’d been tortured by the guy, so he was probably a little biased.

Rey didn’t need to be a mind-reader to know what Poe was thinking, judging by the overexcited grin plastered on his face. “It’s not like that,” she muttered, willing him to accept the lie. Was it possible to use a Jedi mind trick to get people to stop asking you invasive questions about your It’s Complicated™ relationship?

If Kylo had known what Rey was thinking he would have said yes, it _was_ possible to do that with a Jedi mind trick, but he wasn’t going to interfere. He wanted the answer just as badly as everyone else in the room. More, probably, since it was about him. It wasn’t news that Rey had some sort of attachment to him—obviously; they were bound together in the Force because neither of them could back down from a fight—but the idea that she felt strongly enough about him to fight with Luke after he’d interrupted their moment was electrifying. Despite all of the complicated factors in the way, maybe they had a chance at becoming something more than enemies. 

“So what you’re saying,” Poe said, looking between Rey and Kylo, “is that you fought Luke Skywalker for Kylo Ren’s honor.”

It was difficult to say who was more horrified: Rey or Kylo. The scavenger turned even redder and stammered out a denial, while the knight’s eyes went comically wide in shock. Rose, like Poe, was having a difficult time keeping her amusement under wraps. She kept biting the inside of her cheek in an attempt to keep herself from laughing.

Finn was more surprised than amused or horrified. The stormtrooper curriculum had been a little light on the topic of “navigating interpersonal relationships,” so the fact that Rey’s and Kylo’s actions had anything to do with any sort of mutual attraction they felt for each other was difficult to connect. It did sort of make sense, now that he thought about it. He’d been unconscious for the latter half of the Starkiller Base duel, but he could easily picture Kylo giving Rey heart eyes after she kicked his ass. The fact that Kylo seemed less and less likely to run back to the First Order elevated his status in Finn’s mind. “Well,” he said. “Let’s hope he earns it. If only so that Rey can laugh in Skywalker’s face when he gets back.” He paused, then stood up. “Man, I am _so_ bored right now.”

* * *

_Flying high above the sky_  
_The battles down below look simplified_  
_With no place to hide_  
_But on inspection of the dust_  
_I came upon this thing called trust  
_ _It helps us to adjust_

Rey still didn’t know what to make of Finn’s “Let’s hope he earns it” comment, but given that Finn had used it as an opportunity to turn on the old music player he, Rose, and Poe had found earlier, Rey had gladly seized the opportunity to move on from the current conversation and was now pointedly ignoring the looks Kylo was throwing her way. Besides, with the music playing, Poe’s ridiculous dance moves were getting more and more dramatic, and he wasn’t letting anyone sit it out. Rey had never once in her life danced, and judging from the way Finn was moving, he hadn’t, either. Kylo, surprisingly, didn’t seem uncomfortable picking up the beat and going with it. And if it gave her the opportunity to watch him some more, while he was distracted with the dancing? She wasn’t going to say no to that.

_Just imagine my surprise_  
_When I looked into your eyes  
_ _I knew right then I'd never let you go_

Poe was surprised that the music player still worked after all this time, although he suspected that Rose had worked some of her mechanic magic earlier to get it functional. It didn’t have a wide variety of music (which was to be expected; after all, they were a long way away from any other settled planets, so they couldn’t simply stream something from the HoloNet), but that was okay. It had enough to dance to, and that was what mattered in the moment. They all needed to take some time to unwind after _that_ conversation.

“Come on,” Rose said, grabbing Finn’s hand. “You can’t tell me they never had dancing in the First Order. Look at Kylo. He knows how to dance.”

“I’m pretty sure he didn’t learn that with the Order,” Finn said, watching the (former?) Knight of Ren move. He shouldn’t have been surprised that he could move so gracefully, but then again, he was a fully trained Force-sensitive. It made sense that he knew how to move. 

_We are not alone_  
_Find out when your cover's blown  
_ _There'll be somebody there to break your fall_

Despite himself, Kylo found that the dancing wasn’t that bad. As much as he hated Dameron, he had to admit, the man had some good moves. Stars, when was the last time he’d moved like this? He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d used his body for anything other than destruction. It felt...good. Which was a very strange sensation.

Well, shit. He’d forgotten what _good_ felt like.

_We are not alone  
_ _'Cause when you cut down to the bone  
_ _We're really not so different after all_

Kylo let his gaze slide to where Rey was now dancing with Finn. She, like Finn, hadn’t had a lot of opportunities for dancing in the past, so it was awkward to watch. No. He couldn’t stand by and let this happen. “Hold on,” he said, maneuvering himself so that he was standing between Rey and Finn. “Like this.” Unable to believe what he was about to do, he took one of Finn’s hands and one of Rey’s and twirled them around. The end result was the three of them crashing into each other, but it generated a lot of laughter, so overall it was a success. Of a sort.

_If we dare expose our hearts  
_ _Just to feel the purest parts  
_ _That's when strange sensations start to grow_

If you had asked Rey ten minutes ago if she thought she’d ever find herself holding hands with Kylo Ren again, she’d have choked on her own laughter. But now, with the oddly topical song in the background, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to let him attempt to twirl her and Finn around while Rose and Poe watched. And when the three of them crashed into each other (because twirling wasn’t exactly a novice dance move), rather than jump apart awkwardly, she found herself leaning into the moment. Which meant leaning into Kylo.

As soon as he caught on to what was happening, Finn danced away from Rey and Kylo and towards Rose and Poe, who were engaging in their own silly dance-twirling. “Think those two are starting to figure it out?” Poe asked, nodding at the Force-sensitives, who were now completely absorbed in each other. Which was fine by him; he’d much rather hang out with Rose and Finn, anyway.

“As much fun as it’s been to poke fun at Kylo,” Rose said, staring at them, “I can’t wait until they finally get over themselves. Besides,” she added, turning back towards Finn and Poe. “I kind of want you all to myself now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is "We Are Not Alone" by Karla Devito, and it's the exact song they use in [the dance scene in TBC](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbGlWN6Z0OA).
> 
> Fun fact, [someone did once try to cash a US$350bn check in the US](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-man-tries-to-cash-360b-check/). I am not creative enough to make that up.


	10. Because I knew you wouldn’t

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Kylo finally admit some things to each other. Rose, Finn, and Poe negotiate their new relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how about that tros trailer, huh?? how are you guys doing? it killed me and i haven't quite gotten over it yet.
> 
> tiny note on this chapter: i’m including some references to [Star Wars Adventures 6 (from IDW Comics)](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Adventures_6) because there is a delightful story featuring badass mechanic nerd rose saving the day, so spoilers for that, if that's a concern of yours.

“Hold still,” Rey said, hand hovering centimeters from Rose’s eyelid. “This is going to come out uneven if you move.”

“Where did you even get cosmetics?” Rose said, forcing herself to stand as still as a statue. “I’d have thought that there would be more pressing matters on Jakku and Ahch-To.” 

“I scavenged them,” Rey said as she dragged the kohl pen along the edge of Rose’s eyelid. Which was sort of true; she’d found them in a drawer on the _Millennium Falcon._ She was pretty sure that they weren’t Han’s or Chewie’s, but there was no telling who had forgotten their things (or had them stolen) in all of the times that the ship had changed hands before finding her way back to Han and Chewie. She’d forgotten that she’d tucked them into a pocket on her belt at some point between Ahch-To and Crait until just now. 

Rey, Rose, Finn, and Poe were just killing time until Luke or Leia showed up to give them new orders, and they were quickly growing bored. There wasn’t much left in the room to go over, and none of it was of any use aside from the music player. And even that wasn’t good for anything other than very limited entertainment purposes.

After they’d run through the extremely limited selection of songs on the music player, Kylo had climbed back up into the ceiling, intent on returning to the actual prison cell he was supposed to be in. He hadn’t said anything aloud, but Rey was fairly certain he was no longer hell-bent on killing his uncle. Rose had made a comment about how his priorities had changed, causing Rey to wonder what exactly Rose and Kylo had been talking about while she, Finn, and Poe had been on the hunt for snacks.

Or maybe he just needed a break from being stuck in a room with four other people, three of whom he had a complicated history with. Either way, he wasn’t going to be alone for long. Rey would make sure of that, somehow.

“And where the hell did you learn to use cosmetics?” Rose asked, interrupting Rey’s train of thought.

“Oh, that?” Rey said, the corners of her mouth quirking up in a wry smile. “I learned from some ancient Jedi texts I sto— _borrowed_ from Luke. Don’t tell him.” She’d initially been disappointed by the lack of clear, easy answers to all of her questions, but she couldn’t deny that the lessons had come in handy. There was something to be said in knowing that you looked hot as you took down half of the Praetorian guard. And, okay, Rey wasn’t naive enough to believe that her physical appearance had any effect on Kylo’s decision to kill his master in order to save her life...but it didn’t _hurt_ , did it?

“Is this what they used to teach young padawans in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant?” Rey’s story didn’t seem to add up. Why the hell did the ancient Jedi concern themselves with cosmetics? In all of the stories Rose had ever heard, the Jedi were all about peace, austerity, and lightsabers.

Oh well. It was more interesting to think about Jedi having self-care spa days, now that Rey had brought it up.

“I have no idea,” Rey said, moving on to the mechanic’s other eye. “I didn’t get that far in the books. It takes less time to get back here from Ahch-To than you’d expect.” _And getting ready to ship yourself to your It’s Complicated™ person takes more time than you’d expect._

They continued to chat quietly while Rey and Rose finished playing with the make-up. All the while, a plan was forming in Rey’s mind, but she didn’t know how to vocalize it. She’d caught the looks Rose, Poe, and Finn had been giving each other, though, so she was fairly confident she’d be able to sneak off while they sorted out whatever it was they were about to sort out. Probably something along the lines to what she and Kylo were about to sort out. “This was fun,” Rose said, taking one last look in the mirror. “I don’t usually bother with cosmetics.” 

“Neither do I,” Rey said, “but we look good, don’t we?”

“We’re a couple of very attractive human females, yes,” Rose said, laughing.

Rey couldn’t stop herself from grinning back at the mechanic. “Who says mechanics and Jedi can’t enjoy traditionally feminine pursuits?”

“Do you have any of this leftover? Finn and Poe would look good with eyeliner, too.”

* * *

Rose wasn’t surprised to see Rey climb up into the ceiling, following the route Kylo had taken to sneak in earlier. She smiled to herself, thinking about his reaction to Rey dropping into his jail cell. _Oh, to be a fly on the wall for_ that _conversation,_ she thought.

_On second thought,_ she realized, _maybe not. I could see something I can’t unsee._

Besides, she was about half a second away from having an overdue conversation of her own. Poe and Finn had been talking as they sorted through a box of old junk while Rose and Rey were applying the cosmetics, but at the sound of Rose’s approaching footsteps, they stopped. 

Turned.

Saw her.

Exchanged glances.

Jaws dropped.

Rose smiled, cursing the blush she could feel rising in her cheeks. “Wow,” Finn said in a hushed tone. “Rose, you look…”

“Gorgeous,” Poe finished for him. “Not that you didn’t before! You’re beautiful no matter what you do with cosmetics.”

“Oh, I know,” Rose said, attempting to hide the fact that her stomach was doing gymnastics. This was _exactly_ the sort of reaction she had been hoping for. “But the cosmetics are fun, aren’t they? You two should try it sometime.”

Coincidentally, about three seconds before Rose reappeared from wherever she and Rey had sneaked off to, Finn and Poe had been discussing the topic of their mutual affection for the mechanic. “She once saved my life while I was being chased by TIE fighters and refused to take credit for it,” Poe had said. “I called her ‘Shy Mechanic’ because she wouldn’t tell me her name, but I figured it out not long after you two left for Canto Bight. She’s a brilliant mechanic, you know.”

“Out of anyone to go to Canto Bight with,” Finn had replied, “I’m glad it was her. She made sure to let all the fathiers out of their stables when we escaped. Even as we were about to get caught, she said it was worth it.” He paused, then added quietly, “We both thought we were going to die on the _Supremacy_. She made sure to fly us out of there.”

As soon as Finn was capable of processing things other than _Poe and I feel the same way about Rose and I think we feel the same way about each other,_ it occurred to him that the fourth person in their detention crew was missing. “Where’s Rey?” he asked.

“She left,” Rose said. “She had something to do.” _Or some_ one _to do._

Finn and Poe exchanged another glance before deciding that they didn’t want to pursue that line of thought. Poe wasn’t surprised that Rey was sneaking off to find Kylo. It seemed inevitable that the Force-sensitives would seek each other out. They’d never said it aloud, but he was positive they had some sort of magical Force connection that neither of them shared with anyone else. _Good for them_ , he thought. He still couldn’t say he knew what Rey saw in Kylo, but they seemed like they’d be good for each other. If only because she could take him in a fight, and they both seemed like the type of person who would consider that ‘foreplay.’

_Should I be alarmed?_ Finn wondered. There had been a moment during their escape from Jakku that he had thought that he and Rey shared something special. (They did share something special, as it turned out; it just wasn’t the same kind of something special that he shared with Poe and Rose.) What Finn and Rey had wasn’t any less important than what he had with Poe and Rose.

That being said, this was definitely a conversation that they didn’t need to have Rey around for.

“So it’s just us now?” Poe asked, looking from Finn to Rose. It wasn’t like he’d wanted Rey and Kylo to go away, but now that they were gone, he felt a lot more relaxed. (And no, it wasn’t the weed. They’d all sobered up by now.)

“It’s just us now,” Rose repeated, taking their hands in hers. “So,” she added, sounding surprisingly businesslike, “I know that it’s not really possible to date while on the run from a massive fascist regime intent on taking over the galaxy, but we’re all in agreement that we really like each other and would date under normal circumstances, right?”

Poe laughed, feeling himself heat up a little bit. “I thought you’d never ask.” He kissed Rose’s cheek, then he and Rose both turned to Finn, who was giving them both a dazed look. “Finn? Buddy?” _Kriff. I_ really _hope we haven’t fucked this up, too._ He had to get something right eventually, and he selfishly wanted it to be this. 

Finn’s dazed look was panic masquerading as confusion. Nothing in his life had ever prepared him for something like this. Even simple friendships were discouraged among stormtroopers, never mind—what did you call a relationship with three people, anyway? Hell, he didn’t even have the _vocabulary_ for this. “Finn?” Rose said quietly. She sounded about a hundred times more nervous now than she had half a minute ago, which shook Finn out of his daze. Making Rose feel like he was rejecting her and Poe was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

Well, okay. Second-last. Knowing whatever the hell Rey had left to go do with Kylo was the actual last thing he wanted right now. 

_Say something, stupid._ “I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted. “But for you two, I think I’d like to find out.” He had originally planned to say more, but he was cut off as Rose and Poe tried to kiss him at the same time. _We’re going to have to work on that,_ he thought. 

He couldn’t wait.

* * *

Kylo sighed as he laid back on the sole piece of furniture in the cell, trying to figure out what to do next. He sure as hell couldn’t stay with the Resistance, no matter what had transpired over the past few hours. It wasn’t that he still hated them—on the contrary; he was starting to realize how damaging that sort of black-and-white thinking was—but it wasn’t his place, and it never truly would be.

Neither was the First Order, however. And anyway, it wasn’t like he had anything waiting for him back there. And then there was the matter of where he and Rey stood, because for all their attempts to pretend otherwise, they were bonded in the Force for good. Kylo still didn’t buy for a second that Snoke had masterminded their bond. Deep down, he knew that the Force couldn’t be manipulated like that. 

In any case, he still had no idea what to do about any it.

There was a _whoosh_ as the door to the cell opened, signaling someone’s approach. For a moment, Kylo thought it was Luke, who had mysteriously fucked off and was Force knew where. But there was no mistaking the pull that he felt as Rey approached. He pushed himself to his feet, preparing for—what? He didn’t know what the determined expression on her face meant. 

Rey took in the sight of Kylo standing, the tension practically swirling between them. She’d meant to drop down into his cell, but she’d misjudged and had landed in the corridor outside. Fortunately, no one was nearby, which meant that she didn’t have to try to recreate the Jedi mind trick in order to cause someone to forget they’d seen her. The way forward was finally clear to her (at least for the next ten or so minutes), and there was no going back now.

Kylo stared in silence, neither he nor Rey breaking eye contact as she approached him where he was rooted to the floor. The air was thick with anticipation, although he was too busy trying to comprehend what was happening to realize what the anticipation meant. 

_You know the way forward,_ Rey told herself. _You’ve been thinking about this since_ … Damn, she’d been thinking about it since that day in the interrogation room. Had it really been that long? Or that short? She felt her body moving of its own accord until she was standing mere centimeters from Kylo, leaning in to press her lips to his— 

Kylo realized what Rey was doing about half a second before he felt the sensation of her lips placing an open-mouthed kiss on his pulse point. He’d never known how many nerve endings he had there until that very moment, and he gave a full-body shudder as he struggled to not let a whimper escape. 

_That was not what we were supposed to kiss,_ the hormone-driven part of Rey’s brain told her. _You were supposed to go for his_ lips _, you idiot._

Rey pulled back, feeling excruciatingly awkward about the whole thing. Kylo hadn't reacted, aside from a single sigh. She couldn't read his expression when she pulled her gaze up to meet his. "Why'd you do that?" he asked, clearly trying very hard to maintain a neutral tone of voice.

"'Cause I knew you wouldn't," she said as nonchalantly as she could manage.

(Seeing as neither of them had any chill whatsoever, they both failed to sound even a little bit uninterested in the conversation.)

"Rey..." Kylo's brain was still trying to make sense of the situation. He was certain she was expecting a stronger reaction. And, truth be told, he wanted to give her the reaction she was looking for. He was just having trouble making his brain work properly.

"Were you really that disturbed by the fact that I said I’d scavenge naked?" she asked, her heart pounding. 

"Honestly?" She nodded. "No. I was pretty into it, actually," he confessed.

She stepped closer, bringing her hands to rest on his waist. "You were?" she asked.

"There are a lot of things I'm into where you're concerned," he said, tilting her chin up. There. That was an appropriate reaction, right?

"Oh yeah?" she murmured. She was leaning in now, so close that he could practically feel the words on his lips. "Like what?"

_Why don't I show you?_ he thought, closing the gap between them. Rey responded in kind, one hand tangling in his hair, the other wrapped around his waist. They both had approximately half a second of thinking _Should we be hooking up in here?_ before deciding that _Probably not, but who cares?_ was the best answer. It was awkward and probably the least romantic setting for a first kiss, and somehow that made it perfect for them.

Kylo had put aside thoughts of sex and romance a long time ago. Luke may have done away with the “relationships are forbidden” rule that Jedi used to follow, but when your uncle was the one teaching your sexual ed class, you ended up throwing any vaguely sexual thoughts in the _gross, go away_ box. Rey, on the other hand, had always been too consumed with survival and waiting for her family that she’d never bothered to pursue any sort of relationship. 

_The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead._ She was finally starting to understand what Maz had meant.

They eventually broke apart, because as it turned out, it was a little difficult to figure out how to breathe while making out. “So,” Kylo said. He and Rey hadn’t let go of each other. If anything, they were holding each other more tightly than they had before.

“So,” Rey said, trying to figure out what came next. It had something to do with tongues, she was pretty sure. And maybe they could lose the shirts. That might be nice. “How much time do you think we have until someone comes looking for us?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look i know i'm not even a little bit subtle and i will defend to the death everyone’s right to wear or to not wear makeup regardless of gender identity or presentation. you can't rid of my headcanon that rey's supremacy makeover was done via scavenged cosmetics on the falcon and tutorials from the sacred jedi texts.
> 
> just an epilogue left. how will they ever figure out where to go from here? will we get someone doing the iconic judd nelson fist pump? who knows!


	11. Don't you forget about me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Won't you come see about me?  
> I'll be alone, dancing you know it baby  
> Tell me your troubles and doubts  
> Giving me everything inside and out and  
> Love's strange so real in the dark  
> Think of the tender things that we were working on  
> Slow change may pull us apart  
> When the light gets into your heart, baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [let's have a little mood music, shall we?](https://youtu.be/CdqoNKCCt7A)

“I still think it’s a terrible idea to let the kid go off on his own.”

“The ‘kid’ is twenty-nine, and he won’t be alone, Luke.”

“Right, sorry: I still think it’s a terrible idea to let _the kids_ go off on _their_ own.”

Leia rolled her eyes. She and Luke had already had this discussion at least ten times in the past day and a half alone. “They’re adults. Terrifyingly powerful Force-sensitive adults, but still adults.” Luke was wearing an expression which suggested that he was silently begging any and all Force ghosts for assistance. She was willing to bet her last ship that the ghosts of Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Yoda were getting the last laugh in this situation.

"We're not stupid," Ben said, offended at his mother's condescending tone. "We're not running away to rejoin the First Order. They're probably in chaos right now anyway, with Snoke dead and the _Supremacy_ a wreck."

"How do we know we can trust you?" Luke asked.

It was a valid question, but that didn't mean that Rey's hackles weren't raised by it. "You're Force-sensitive," she snapped. "Search your feelings. You know it to be true.”

_I think he knows something happened between me and Rey,_ thought Ben, _and I don't think he wants to know what._ Still, that didn't fully explain the stricken expression that had appeared on his uncle's face. "Besides," he added. "Who better to go after the Knights of Ren than us? I know how to find them, and they'll listen to me. And if they don't, we'll k—"

"We'll arrest them and take them to be processed as the war criminals they are," Rey finished. "Right, Ben?"

The twins exchanged glances. Neither of them knew which was more surprising, the fact that she kept calling him Ben or the fact that he was allowing it. Leia didn’t want to get her hopes up about what exactly that meant, but she couldn’t keep herself from considering potential wedding venues.

Assuming they all made it out of this alive, anyway.

At the very least, it would have been nice to have a small party to officially welcome Rey to the family. Stars knew she deserved it, and it was important that Ben knew he was still a part of the family as well. Things were never going to go back to the way they were when Ben was a student at Luke’s school, but that didn’t mean there was no hope for their family.

Rey misinterpreted Leia’s faraway look as one of skepticism. She plowed on to her next argument in the “Let Rey and Ben go off on their own and do good things for the Resistance” list she and Ben had prepared for this discussion. "We can do more good out there than we can here. We'll check in regularly so that you don't worry about us."

"It's not _your_ safety we're worried about," Luke said.

"We know," Ben muttered.

"Besides," Rey added as patiently as she could manage. She understood why Luke and Leia were hesitant about this plan, but they had to know it was the best one, given the circumstances. "You don't want Kylo Ren wandering around here. It'll be bad for morale. People are scared of him."

_Ouch._ "Thanks, Rey.”

"You know it's true," she whispered. He did, but she didn't have to phrase it that way. "We'll be in constant contact, and if we're lucky, we can get some of the Knights of Ren fighting on our side, too. Their loyalty might lie more with Ben than it does with the First Order."

Leia was starting to see their point. "Okay," she said. "But how are you planning on getting out of here? We're down to our last ship. The escape pods from the _Raddus_ aren't going to get us any further than the edge of this system."

"Ben can stowaway on the _Millennium Falcon_ until we find a spaceport where we can sneak off and buy a ship," Rey said, as if it wasn't an incredibly risky plan.

If she was being honest, she hadn’t quite worked out how that was going to work, given the number of people who would be crammed aboard the ship. She knew from some of the Force training she’d absorbed from Ben that it was possible to use the Force to mask one’s presence, but she wasn’t sure that would extend to hiding the presence of an additional being aboard a ship whose life support systems were being taxed as severely as the _Falcon_ ’s were about to be.

Aside from the limited life support issue, that plan was a no-go for Leia. She’d already lost a lot of political support once by hiding the truth about her family. She couldn't stand to do so again. They’d informed the remaining members of the Resistance that Snoke was dead and the First Order was in shambles, but they hadn’t told anyone that Kylo Ren was among them. And then there was that awkward fact that he was Han and Leia’s son, and it was just setting them up for another scandal like the one Casterfo had pulled.

But this time, the stakes were higher. "Fine," Leia said, coming to a decision. "We have Luke's old X-wing."

"I'm not sure that thing could make it out of this system, either," Luke admitted. "I'm surprised it got me here in one piece, to be honest." The Force sometimes worked in mysterious ways. He was pretty sure this was one of those times. 

"If anyone can get it working again," Ben said, "it's Rey and Rose." He looked at her. "Right?"

It was nice to have someone have so much faith in her for once, Rey thought. She grinned at him. "Challenge accepted."

* * *

Meanwhile, in another part of the Crait base, Rose was taking inventory of the ships and parts they had left. "I want to say that this is incredibly discouraging," she said as she prodded at another rusty monoski, "but considering most of this stuff hasn't been touched in about four decades, it's in better condition than I could have hoped for." 

"That's a good way of looking at it," Finn said. As much as he believed in his girlfriend ( _yeah, that's right, she's my girlfriend now, how weird is that?_ he wondered for the hundredth time), he'd spent a lot of time in maintenance when he was with the First Order. He'd never seen so many ships in this state of decay.

As if knowing where his boyfriend's thoughts were going, Poe clapped a hand on Finn's shoulder and said, "Pretty big difference from where you came from, eh?"

"Come on," Rose said as she crawled out from underneath the monoski to look at her boyfriends. "Have a little faith in me." 

Finn wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead. "I have the utmost faith in you," he said. "I'm just scared of what the First Order will do when they catch up to us. Who knows how much time we have left before they pull themselves together again?"

Poe agreed that Finn had a point, but he was forgetting a very large factor: "You've met Kylo," he said. "Imagine how much damage he did before getting out of there."

"Him and Rey both," Rose pointed out. "Stars, I'm so glad they're on our side."

_Was_ Kylo on their side? They hadn't seen him or Rey since she'd sneaked off to go find him. It had been implied that he'd changed his mind about the First Order vs Resistance war, and Finn knew that Rey would never betray them. But everyone in the entire galaxy knew how unpredictable Kylo Ren was. His unpredictability was half of what made him so terrifying.

"So," Poe said, wrapping one arm around Finn's waist and the other around Rose's shoulders, "what next? Is this the part where we pretend to live happily ever after?"

Rose snorted. "Ask me again after we salvage what we can of this equipment," she replied.

"Speaking of," said Finn, looking around the hangar, "Where's Rey?"

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Leia asked Luke as they watched Rey and Ben walk off in the direction of the hangar in search of parts they could use to rig Luke's old X-wing together for one last flight.

"I'm too old to go into battle on that thing again," Luke replied.

"Don't say that; we're the same age."

* * *

Ben wondered if it was appropriate to take Rey's hand as they made their way towards the ship's hangar. The gesture had a lot of meaning for them, and if they came across any of the remaining Resistance fighters, it might lead to some awkward questions.

(Not that there were a lot of them left, and the ones that were left were performing other duties around the Crait base. It was meant to hold a lot more people than it currently held, and they all knew they couldn't stay there for much longer.)

The First Order may have retreated after the _Supremacy_ went down, but they'd be back. Ben knew how Hux's mind worked, and he had no doubt that he had assumed control of the First Order. With any luck, there would be so much infighting among the other generals and admirals in the First Order that they would destroy themselves from the inside. Hux wasn't exactly the most popular figure there, and it was no secret that most of the former Imperial officers resented him for being young.

Ben almost wished that he could watch that impending clusterfuck unfold, now that he thought about it.

The Empire had known what it was doing up until they tried to build another Death Star, and the First Order hadn't learned from that mistake when they'd decided to build Starkiller Base. It was Hux's brainchild, which meant that a lot of the older officers and generals had fought against the plan. But the Supreme Leader had been on Hux's side, and no one had ever been brave enough—or stupid enough—to go against his orders. 

"Come on," Rey said, turning to look back at her—what were they? Were they still an _It's Complicated™_ ? She wasn't sure the type of relationship they had had a label. Her vocabulary for relationships didn’t extend past the basics: _mother, father, friend,_ and _It’s Complicated™._ "Are you sure about this plan?" She didn't want to be separated from him for too long, which surprised her. 

But after having spent so much of her life waiting for people who, in the end, weren't going to return, was it really so irrational to want to cling on to the one person who wasn't going to leave her?

"It's the best plan we've got," he said quietly. "You rig the X-wing to get me to the nearest system with Resistance sympathies. The _Falcon_ will rendez-vous there. You and I will get our own ship, and we'll start hunting down the Knights of Ren." Surely they'd heard by now that Snoke was gone, but without a quick way to get in touch with them, he couldn't be sure they'd know what to do. They'd never planned for this particular scenario, which was an oversight, in retrospect. 

In their defense, they'd spent so much time believing that the former Supreme Leader was omnipotent that it had never occurred to them to plan for it. Not to mention that Snoke would have found out somehow—he'd had that nasty habit of invading Ben’s mind on a regular basis—and he'd have killed them for treason.

"I know where to start looking for them," he added, even though they'd gone over it before. He could sense them in the Force, and he had no doubt that Rey could, too, if she knew what she was looking for. "And I'm pretty sure that you and I will always find each other."

Despite her apprehension about the whole situation, Rey couldn't help but smile at him. "Yeah," she said. "You're right." She moved closer to him and took his hand in hers. "We're bound together in the Force." What she really wanted to say was _You're stuck with me forever,_ but that struck her as vaguely desperate. 

The nice thing about being bound in the Force so tightly was that it made it easy to read the subtext. Coincidentally, it was the exact same thing he was thinking. "I know,” he said. “You're stuck with me forever, too."

Rey couldn’t hold it in anymore. She pumped her fist into the air, full of hope and excitement about the future.

Snoke was dead. She and Ben were together. The Resistance would rise again, stronger than ever.

Ben laughed. It took them both a moment to realize what the noise coming out of his mouth was; by then, his cheeks and ears had turned pink. “What was that for?” he asked, attempting to casually rearrange his hair to cover his ears. 

She shrugged, then slowly lowered her arm. “Just seemed like the right thing to do,” she said. “For the first time that I can remember, I’m looking to the future.”

He didn’t know what to do in the face of so much optimism. “Don’t you forget about me in that bright future of yours.” 

Rey stopped dead in her tracks. “Weren’t you the one who said I’d stand by your side?”

She had a point. “This is not how I thought that vision was going to end,” he admitted. “And yet I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

They were on a schedule (not to mention, they were trying to hide from the rest of the Resistance), but they still took a moment to sneak a kiss. “Come on,” Rey whispered as they broke apart. “Fist pump with me this time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're reading this, thank you so much! i really appreciate all of your kudos, comments, retweets, etc ❤️ this has been a very strange yet fun story to write, and it's allowed me to talk even more about some of my favorite movies than i already do.
> 
> another HUGE thank you to WhatSorceressIsThis, without whom this fic would not exist, mostly because she gave me the idea in the first place but also because she listened to me panic through "idk if this is any good???" ❤️❤️❤️
> 
> ps - if you're interested, [i wrote a little finnlo (finn/kylo) remix drabble of this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21154658).

**Author's Note:**

> i'm aiming for an update every week or two, depending on how chaotic my life is at any given point in time. i can be found on tumblr as [radioactivesaltghoul](https://radioactivesaltghoul.tumblr.com/) and twitter as [r_saltghoul](https://twitter.com/r_saltghoul). feedback is appreciated!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Sincerely Yours, The Crait Breakfast Club: Finnlo Remix](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21154658) by [radioactivesaltghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radioactivesaltghoul/pseuds/radioactivesaltghoul)




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